Premonitions Of War
Glorified Dirt/The True Face of Panic
4.6
Truthfully, I've never gotten around to listening to Premonitions Of War, despite the near-constant badgering of friends both distant and close. So this presents two immediate questions the moment the first song begins: is this as praiseworthy as everyone keeps saying, and do I feel like I've been missing out on a great thing for years? No, it's not, and no, I don't. Now I'm just concerned with what's wrong with my friends and if they just threw some band names into a hat and drew one to determine who they'd walk around talking about for the next year.
Right off the bat, the first thing I notice is the murky production which never lends itself to quirky, noisy, grinding metalcore. The vocals take a back-seat, however, it's hard to say what the hell really takes the front-seat when everything's equally lacking clarity. It's not unforgivable, but it becomes more difficult to critique something where the aspect that stands out the most are the time-changes. Their talented timing, however, isn't enough to save the band from their boring and monotone meat-gargling vocals, drudging breakdowns, played-out bends, and general discordance. There's an unnecessary hard and disjointed electronic interlude with "Time For Iron", but aside from that, everything's pretty homogenous, which is alright. But that's it: just alright. At least the sound their continually putting forth is something initially dynamic and interesting that takes a few minutes before frustrating you into lazily kicking your CD player off your dresser.
The only thought I'm left with after hearing Premonitions Of War is how they fit perfectly on Black Market Activities, a label I've always been rather lukewarm towards. Always far from being bad but never compelling, and maybe even inspiring to inexperienced listeners of brutal and grating music, but generally dull for the rest of us.
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Premonitions Of WarLeft In Kowloon
1/27/2004