Mutiny Within

Mutiny Within

Written by: BL on 18/09/2010 11:05:43

This debut album by the New Jersey US heavy metal six piece has been sitting at the top of my pile for a while and for one reason or another, I never got round to putting the review out. But you know what? I think I must have been just taken back by how impressive this album is and couldn't find the right words to properly express things. Mutiny Within's self titled first release is simply bursting with impressive guitars and instrumentation, soaring clean vocals with powerful screams, and a natural ability to write compelling and catchy songs without having to sacrifice any integrity to incorporate overtly poppy influences.

Mutiny Within is the amalgamation of melodic death metal, progressive metal, hints of metalcore and power metal all into one explosive package. "Awake" and "Images" start off the album off with high octane riffing and driving choruses showing you just what these guys can get up to before "Falling Forever" takes it one step higher with even better riffs, great vocals and a stellar guitar solo. "Year Of Affliction" continues the trend with a superb intro section, and then another strong chorus to top it off with a blazing late solo. Hints of All That Remains and Trivium come through over and over again especially in the guitars as the tracks go by, except throw in some Dream Theater-esque technicality and intricacies and a dose of epic with the kind of singing vocals you might hear in bands like Firewind. While there is screaming, it manages to fit fairly well especially during the heavy parts but are utilised fairly sparsely not to sound out of place.

Actual dull moments are few and far between and the action flows effortlessly from one section to the next. The way these guys always manage to weave together something special to keep you gripped til the end with "Reflections" is impressive - occasionally bringing in slowed down, short piano interludes to space things out nicely (Like at the start of "Forsaken" which has great piano and guitar interplay). Elsewhere you have the heavy hitters like "Lethean" with furious shredding and riffing and lots of screaming throughout. Chris Clancy's singing never gets tiring, despite the formula of his parts remaining mostly unchanged throughout. And not only are the guitars great time and time again but the drum work is also top notch throughout and there's the occasional bass and keyboard flourish (keep an eye out for the odd solo like on "Falling Forever" or some great additional piano). I will say that perhaps the songs could have done with more experimentation structures wise, especially since there is a big sort of Killswitch Engage vibe when I look at how songs are laid out.

Mutiny Within have brought a thoroughly solid and enjoyable album to the table for fans of melodic heavy metal, progressive metal and even metalcore. The instrumentation is impressive without being indulgent, imagine bordering on dragonforce's soloing style without having three or four per song and each being almost a minute long basically just to take up room and show off. While perhaps to more critical scrutiny there may be a lack of enough strong variation to make this album a total outright winner, it certainly goes about doing everything else in the right way so if you like what you hear - then there's a lot to enjoy.

8

Download: Year Of Affliction, Oblivion, Undone
For the fans of: Trivium, All That Remains and Killswitch Engage all blended with Dream Theater
Listen: Myspace

Release date 23.02.2010
Roadrunner Records

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