Motionless In White

When Love Met Destruction

Written by: AP on 16/02/2009 01:25:15

If ever there was a band whose following is almost certain to consist of karate-obsessed brootal kids only, Motionless In White is it. The band's debut album, "When Love Met Destruction" caters to this type of fan; the kind that weighs bands against each other on the basis of the moshability of their music, preferring profanity over poetry and brutality over comprehensiveness. This kind of fan cares little for detail as long as the music allows him to become that kid everybody hates at shows and to sing along when the pit exhausts him. I, and many others, call the genre that caters to this kind of fan brootalcore.

On the surface "When Love Met Destruction" seems like yet another one of these scene-pleasers with little new to offer, but in the depths under the generic discord/breakdown practices, which, through overuse as here, become unforgivably fucking annoying, lurks an enigmatic atmosphere that is as mortifying as it is captivating; like flirting with danger; holding a wolf by the ears. You see, with six instruments at their disposal, Motionless In White are able to lay down layer and layer, which, thanks to slight overproduction and clever mixing, sounds like the musical equivalent of the South Asia tsunami disaster four years ago.

Occasionally the multi-layering in the songs works against them. There are moments where the band literally goes for everything at once; underneath a brutal breakdown, over it a massive bar chord riff, screaming and clean vocals, as well as a lofty keyboard melody that cradles everything under an air of grandeur. The soundscape is immense, which is both the album's greatest strength and its worst pitfall. Sometimes the effect is devastating, overwhelming and beautiful, but other times it results in a sonic blur in which the only point of reference is the drumming; just noise without a purpose or direction. Personally this scribe is divided on the issue, because even if said noise tends to crowd out reason, it is often overshadowed by the frightening enormity of the song. Whether that effect is positive or negative will be left to individual preference and no further comment shall be made on it here.

So, what to make of it? It certainly does not revolutionize music (even just 'whatevercore') in the way that the "Origin of Species" refashioned our understanding of how we came to be; nor does it avoid the stigma of just another scene band but even with its taste for the generic "When Love Met Destruction" is worthwhile, and if anything, it's a fine debut album. Motionless In White neither blends in nor stands out, instead drifting along as a band that does not, and probably never will reinvent the wheel, so to say, but betters most of its contemporaries.

7

Download: Ghost In The Mirror, Billy In 4-C Never Saw It Coming, Apocolips

For the fans of: A Skylit Drive, Attack Attack!, In Fear And Faith

Listen: Myspace

Release date 17.02.2009

Tragic Hero

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