Darling, You Should Be Ashamed - The Weight Of Days EP

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     It has been tough finding the time to write about anything these days. My life has been rather busy as of late. These are the first words I have written in about a week, so, I figured I would throw a wrench in the gears and give a little nod to this band who came out of left field to hit me square upside the head. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined a band like Darling, You Should Be Ashamed having as much of an impact on me as they have. I mean, Last.FM is telling me their similar artists list consists of crap fake Metal-Core like Nevea Tears and Upon Beauty Rests. They are from Salt Lake City and almost all the members are sporting that shitty, contrived swooping comb-over haircut that so many mall-pop bands are wearing these days. I know, I know... Don't ever judge a book... I'll tell ya' though, I am glad I took a chance on these guys when I did.
     The songs on 'The Weight Of Days', as well as their other EP entitled 'Nostalgia' feature a great combination of chunky palm-muting, epic break-downs, guttural growls and emotionally overwrought screams. I was surprised to find very little contrivance within this batch of tunes. Normally, when I sit down to listen to a band like this, I am always half expecting to hear shitty auto-tuned vocals and drum triggers galore running rampant throughout. This is not the case here. Darling, You Should Be Ashamed seem to be taking inspiration from a very honest place and creating music that truly moves them as a band. I hear hints of the good 90's Metal-Core as well as a more modern Post-Hardcore, Screamo and Post-Rock influence. Strangely enough, I hear echos of bands like Overcast and Unbroken here and there as well as some parts that remind me of Since By Man and Forstella Ford. They even tastefully inject some electronic interludes here and there to break up the chaos. Basically, these songs are all over the map stylistically, which definitely can be detrimental to a band's overall sound sometimes. Like I said, these guys seem to have overstepped that problem by knowing how much of any one sound to utilize at any given time. There isn't too much of any one style being overplayed here. Just enough crunch, just enough Metal guitar wank, just enough guttural... These songs are amazing and I can't praise these guys enough! I don't know if they are still a band, but, I would love to hear a full-length someday!

What We're Afraid Of - Long Walk Home

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As I sit here listening to this, counting down the minutes until I have to take that inevitable walk to the bus stop and my mundane trip north to work, I can't help but be reminded of the first time I listened to Converge, or Architects, or even The Chariot.  What We're Afraid Of have crafted a solid album of heavy, chaotic Metalcore with some pretty interesting guitar work throughout.  Also, their vocalist Josh seems to be possessed by some sort of demon or rabid hellbeast.  His throat shredding screams might even make the mighty J. Bannon think about stepping up his game.  By no means reinventing the steel, these guys seem to be having a blast with these songs.  It isn't often I find myself giving bands of this style a chance these days.  I have my favorites, the classics of the genre, but it seems a lot of the time, there is just so little passion being put forth by bands playing this overtly techy Math-Metal stuff that the genre gets bogged down with sad and shitty imitators.  For every Botch, Walls Of Jericho and Dillinger Escape Plan, there are literally thousands of Devil Wears Pradas, Bullet For My Valentines and Bring Me The Horizons.  That's why it is nice once in awhile to hear a band writing songs that don't sacrifice the choler for slick Pop parts and wimped out, scrotumless caterwauling.  I could thrash to this live.