Beneath Dead Waves

Inertia

Written by: MBC on 01/07/2014 21:39:28

Beneath Dead Waves is a young London-based metal band formed in 2007. Their debut album “Inertia” is out now and it is quite the good first effort from the British quintet. The band plays an interesting mix of thrash metal, prog and metalcore blended together into eight songs, several of which stretch way beyond the five minute mark. The band displays high quality song writing abilities and technical proficiency throughout a debut album which is not without its flaws.

Album opener “Nemacyst” is an violent modern thrash metal track that varies greatly in tempo during the course of the runtime of 7:47 minutes. It opens with excellent fast, yet melodic guitar riffs which will work great live to get a crowd going. The song is fast paced and contains some excellent solos and great drum work as well. It is a bold choice for the band to pick such a long song as the album opener, but the song has great energy and works really well. Vocalist Joey Draper has an aggressive mid-to-high scream and a fast flow which enables him to deliver many words in a short amount of time, although they can be quite difficult to decipher. The title track “Inertia” opens with a cool Tool-esque bass riff and a melodic vocal performance by Draper. Once again, this is a track of about eight minutes which features several other parts as well, and thus goes into some more fast riffs and screamed vocals later in the song. The songs in general are extremely varied in tempo and style and it takes many listens to grasp all the details.

During the course of the album, Draper constantly switches back and forth between screaming and singing melodically. Fortunately, this is not a screamed verse/melodic chorus formula, and true to the band’s progressive approach to song writing, he delivers various parts in each song with these two techniques. He has a good range, but has a nasally sounding voice which does become a bit annoying to listen to after a while. Overall though, his performance on the album is good. Guitarists Doug Cartwright and Matt Reeves continue to impress throughout the album with fast riffs, face melting solos, interesting and surprising song structures containing both heavy and melodic parts. Along with the varied and solid performance by drummer Leigh Costanza, the musical proficiency of the band cannot be questioned.

However, the many different directions the band takes its song writing can be a bit confusing at times and the album does not quite know where it belongs. The band seems so eager to prove themselves that they have crammed as much varied material into an album as possible which makes it seem cluttered and keeps it from being truly great. Overall though, this is an impressive debut album from a band who clearly possess the skills to have a great career in metal.

7

Download: Nemacyst, Deliriant, Inertia, A Life Worth Taking
For the fans of: Trivium, Bullet For My Valentine, Between the Buried and Me, Tool, The Dillinger Escape Plan
Listen: Facebook

Release date 30.06.2014
Nemacystem Records

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