Predicting what a CD is going to sound like more often than not is usually right but in this instance I was way off the mark with Coventry’s Finish Him!, apart from the general metalcore style employed. Their image, one of old gents is humorous which made me wonder if they play live in the garb or not.
“Last Night in Beijing” begins with that familiar metalcore twang and whine on the guitar, and just as I was about to sigh with disappointment the song veers into rock but with snarling and deep vocals. This gave me hints of Misery Signals as the band uses very melodic guitar breaks and plenty of variation in pace. Indeed the opening song even decelerates to what I’d call doomcore pace.
The longer “Stanley Ipkiss My Ass” has a solid build up that opens into a rock beat and melody before dropping the pace substantially. At times my mind drifted to a band like Black Hole because of this. The blended growls and hardcore thuggish screams eventually fade into speedier a riff as the track jumps around like a gazelle being chased by a cheetah. The lead work is very good and a standout feature of this promo single, as the song once again bounds off in another direction in a vein similar to Architects though not as intense. The band tends to insert momentary pauses as though they’re making it up as they go along and are waiting for someone to come up with next riff or breakdown.
The silly title of the closing track “Rosie Vs Jim: The Final Showdown” commences in familiar metalcore style but here the band incorporates clean vocals (I still find them hard to endure) and some very subtle guitar work which has Cult Of Luna qualities embedded into it. Once again the song swings from one style to another when the song tones down to a whispered voice and bass drum kick that I found quite pleasant. The clean vocals reappear and for once I actually thought they worked with the music instead of being added to try and doll up the commerciality of metal which always annoys the hell out of me. The song finishes by evolving the vocals into the harsher style whilst also moulding the guitar work the same way.
An interesting set of songs which I hopefully will get to hear the full length at some point and maybe check them out live when they come my way.
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