Hmm. Yes. There's an old saying, a saying that usually comes from some sort of parent or guardian. 'If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'. Unfortunately, abide to this saying when review writing, and you'll come unstuck pretty quickly once you happen to come across a band who's racket doesn't quite meet your musical needs.
Dutch five-piece Severe Outburst don't really meet my musical needs, or tastes. I did have my fingers crossed upon reading the band play a mix of 'groovy death metal' 'hardcore' and 'Swedish melodic metal', but alas, this description pretty much adds up to metalcore. Thus, metalcore it is. Pretty bog-standard metalcore at that. Even if some do call what they do 'modern thrash', it's not really. The press release says 'some people compared them to Pantera, Slayer and Entombed'. Well, if this is so whoever these people are, they need to be lined up and shot. I'm not totally anti-metalcore, in fact I own both Job for a Cowboy albums (a band who are pretty much unanimously hated from what I've read and seen), but this... this is just... urghh.
I hate to do this, but let's get down to brass tacks. This album sucks for pretty much it's entirety. The plodding riffs get confused and stumble about blindly once they attempt to up the tempo, the vocals have no soul at all, filling my face with a emotionless bored sounding growl throughout. The drums serve their purpose, but unfortunately that purpose if being rhythmic backing for sub-par riffage and clueless soloing/divebombing. Seriously, I've heard demo bands with better songwriting ability and technical nous than these guys.
I find myself desperately clutching for some positives, but all I can come up with is 'I'd prefer to listen to this than As I Lay Dying'. For all the metalcore fanatics, do check this out by all means, but I can pretty much guarantee you'll come away with nothing to report either.
http://www.myspace.com/severeoutburst
