Continents

Idle Hands

Written by: PP on 07/02/2013 22:32:39

At this point in time it's safe to say that melodic hardcore has assumed the role of the most hyped and talked about style within scene/heavy music since straight up metalcore has lost its charm over the years. The permeating nature of the sound means that its influence is spreading like wildfire even into albums and bands where it was never meant to be found at in the first place, such as the chug-chug oriented Continents from UK, whose brutalized hybrid of hardcore and metalcore spends awfully long periods in pure chug-chug land (Emmure, etc) and then all of a sudden injecting in lingering melodies in the vein of Misery Signals, The Ghost Inside, et al.

Basically, their new album "Idle Hands" consists of two radically different sounds. On one hand, they have the monotonous one-chord chugfests like "224" and the title-track, and then they have epic clean vocal choruses with haunting guitar melodies on "Pegasus, Pegasus", and back-chilling guitar melodies on "Inhale" expanding their soundscape out of its simplistic confines. There is, of course, a slight bit of groove at the end of each guitar line which can be attributed to Architects influence given this is a UK band after all, but Continents lack the masterful skill with which Architects turn their monotonous style into something way more interesting through a barrages upon barrages of destructive riffs.

But to their credit, whenever Continents break out into more melodic territory, they're actually a rather good band. "Land Of The Free"'s ending is one great example with its faded back gang-shouts while melodic lead guitar is brought to the forefront of their sound, but perhaps an even better one is found on album highlight "Truth And Lies". This is the kind of epicly anthemic song that makes bands famous, especially because of its stark contrast between the heavy pounding sections and ultra catchy melodic hardcore bits during the chorus. It's simply miles ahead of the rest of the material on the album, so it's a shame the band weren't able to write more songs as excellent as this one. There's just too much generic chugging for it to impress thoroughly in an increasingly crowded genre.

Download: Truth And Lies, Inhale, Pegasus Pegasus, Exhale
For the fans of: Architects, The Ghost Inside, Emmure
Listen: Facebook

Release date 22.01.2013
Victory Records

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