The Cardinal Effect
Red Light Carousel
4.5
Ugh. Yet more emo tinged, commercialized Hot Topic-core dressed up in metal clothing to appear more brutal than they really are - metal. Much like the recently reviewed A Day to Remember, Funeral for a Friend, etc, etc, The Cardinal Effect take supposed ‘heavy’ music and flower it up with clean emo vocals and some piecemeal clean acoustic strumming. They are gunning for the new Poison the Well/Deftones with an emo glean sound, but miss the mark.
While my apathy to the style is relatively strong, I can tolerate it if strong songwriting offsets the whiny histrionics (i.e. Swift, He is Legend), unfortunately The Cardinal Effect just don’t measure up with their songs. According to their press sheet, The Cardinal Effect supposedly blur the line between alternative rock, emo and metalcore but end up blurring the line between the mundane, dreary and clichéd. Hopefully, North Carolina’s already crowded, quality scene will swallow up this forgetful act.
The contrivances start early with the introductory hum of “Afterparty”, which within its first two minutes contains the requisite harmonic chorus and attempted dissonant breakdown - the template is laid. “Fistula” initially goes for the direct caustic sound for a few seconds before Jonathan Parker premature ejaculates his clean croon over and over. When trying to posture with their stuttering antics, The Cardinal Effect are as transparent as the entire scene, however if the band just buckles down and admits they are a straight up Staind/Chevelle rock band; “A Song for (To Remember Me By)”, “Press Your Eyes”, “We (The Enemy)”, and “Tides” are less forced and littered with pseudo angry breakdowns and superficial discordance so they come across as more acceptable, even if not my style.
The Jamie King (Swift, He is Legend, Between the Buried and Me) production is clean and geared towards a mainstream audience but it only serves to offer up the music as a hollow dish of forgetful music.
Holy fuck do I need some death metal.
