Sinners To Saints

The Greatest Of These

Written by: PP on 03/09/2013 23:29:05

Their utter inability to string awesome passages together via other means than one chord breakdowns aside, Sinners To Saints from Pennsylvania actually offer a surprisingly fresh take on metalcore and post-hardcore on their new album "The Greatest Of These". It's a hybrid sound of both styles that relies primarily on thick screams in the vocal department in the best chugga-chugga metalcore style, but also throws in uber-catchy clean passages during the choruses to make songs like "Angels & Demons" irresistible to any fan of the genre.

At the same time, the instrumentation bounces between heavy metalcore style dynamic leads and technical passages to softer, most post-hardcore oriented sections which creates a nice variation between the two styles. There are some issues with the stylistical switcheroo, however, and that's primarily found in the idiotic breakdowns that add absolutely nothing to their sound. One moment you'll be singing along to a catchy chorus, but then it's broken down into minimalistic one chord style pummeling shortly after. There are moments where this problem is solved by transitioning into a technically impressive lead melody via well timed tempo shifts, but there are also equally many moments where you're banging your head against the wall for the completely unnecessary regression into derivative chug-chug sections that devalue the band's sound massively on paper. See, the difference between the great bands and the decent bands in this genre is the ability to progress from a verse to a bridge to a chorus without having to resort into brainless measures like that, and that difference is laid bare for everyone to see throughout "The Greatest Of These".

That said, I may be being overtly harsh here. As a whole, the record demonstrates pretty much everything you want from your scene release these days, especially because the clean singer isn't your typical Anthony Green wannabe but sings at a much lower range instead, unafraid to let his voice break into near-shouting when stressed properly. There's also a solid guest appearance by Garret Rapp of The Color Morale on "Fractures", which is a great track in itself, but falls slightly short compared to "Life, Like Statues", "Vanquisher", and "Angels & Demons". The band even dabbles with melodic hardcore style ambiance on album close "In Spite Of You", so there's plenty of stylistic quirk here to explore. If you're able to stomach their tendency to go for breakdowns instead of real sections, there's plenty of good things to discover on the record.

7

Download: Angels & Demons; Fractures; Life, Like Statues; Vanquisher; In Spite Of You
For the fans of: This Or The Apocalypse, The Devil Wears Prada, Elitist, Erra
Listen: Facebook

Release date 26.03.2013
Red Cord Records

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