Friday, May 28, 2010

Millions Of Them - Failures LP


Many bands claim to be influenced by Botch, Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Locust, Coalesce,... but few achieve the same level as these legends, escpecially not in a little shithole like Belgium. Though we have a new contestant, called Millions Of Them. The Antwerp based ex- Reply, Am I Dead Yet?, Minus45°, ... hard/mathcore band has recently released it's first offspring: "Failures", and it has to be said: it's pretty impressive!
Take Botch, add some "When Forever Comes Crashing"-era Converge and season with a little Trap Them and Millions Of Them is what you'll be cooking! And no, it's not a bland and uninspired wannabe rip-off. It's hard and raw, just like the production, which was in the hands of Kurt Ballou of Converge (I think that alone is a pretty good reference, no?) and - above all - it's high quality stuff. Maybe a bit more variation in the songwriting wouldn't be such a bad thing, as I sometimes have the feeling that I'm listening to the same song twice, but that might just be me. Other than that I can only say: Buy this LP (it was also released as a CDr by the band) and keep an eye on Millions Of Them, they have the potential to get to the same level as their influences!

www.myspace.com/millionsofthem
adagio830.de

Stino

Aborted - Coronary Reconstruction EP


Aborted has evolved through the years. Not only did the line-up change more than Michael Jackson's looks, with frontman Svencho as the only consistant factor in the band, but also the music. More -core, more melody, less brutality, in-your-face-death(grind). Some liked it, some didn't. I for one lost my interest in the band these last couple of years, which is strange for a dude who had "Goremageddon" as the soundtrack of his late teenage years. However when Svencho told me that - after yet another line-up change - the band wanted to go back to the "Goremageddon", "Engeneering The Dead" and "The Archaic Abbatoir" albums the interest returned, especially after hearing the first few teasers from what would turn out to be "Coronary Reconstruction", the new Aborted EP.
And Svencho kept word. The new EP has the brutality, speed and power of aforementioned albums. Not too many solos, breakdowns or melodic jibba jabba, just full frontal deathgrind (yeah, the grind part is indeed back, thank you Eran/Whorecore?!). Hell, even the gory intros are back! It might not be as approachable as Strichnine.213, most of the The Black Dahlia fans probably wont like it, but I couldn't care less. It's the first Aborted release in 3 years that got me excited again and I can only hope that the upcoming album is somewhat similar to "Coronary Reconstruction"! Now if they only got rid of those horrible 1000-colour-shirts...

www.myspace.com/abortedmetal
www.centurymedia.com

Stino