Drifting Breed
Hope Here After EP
6.1
Is your album collection low on French metalcore? Well then, perhaps we can remedy that. Drifting Breed is a Parisian quintet with enough interesting quirks to give them a small sense of identity in an overcrowded genre. Hope Hereafter is their first EP, so while there are some rough patches that need to be smoothed out, the meat of the album is pretty solid.
After the obligatory and trifling intro track, the title track bursts forward in a fit of hardcore fury. Nicolas’ vocals are the standard, gruff yell, and yet totally undecipherable. The lyrics are probably in English, as the song titles are, doesn’t really matter though, when you’re preoccupied with picking up change. They avoid breakdowns, relying more on loud and thrashy riffing. “Almost a Stranger” showcases other influences of theirs, opening up with a meandering guitar passage that sounds perhaps Middle Eastern, but builds nicely into a furious slamming of chords. Later on they build around a six-note Slayer-esque progression. The last minute or two of the song drag, but cutting it off at the 3:30 mark would make for a hot little tune.
“Waste Game” takes awhile to get going, and when it does, the song is pretty bland. It’s the kind of song that would get people moving at a show after a beer or two. I’m going to assume that the band had a small production schedule, as this is a balanced, but raw sound. The guitars are too trebly, but the drums sound real. They turn it on in the last song, “Some Reasons to Kill Me”, and valuing speed over technicality. The old-school chord action early on brings a smile to my face.
Drifting Breed has a fine style when they are firing on all cylinders. They are a little too hooked on the slow, building crescendos to start off a song, but it’s a trick that sounds great when done well. The potential is there to make some waves in the metalcore scene, but at the moment, I’d rate them as a solid local act. If I were a Frenchman, I would catch a show of theirs, especially if Yyrkoon was on the bill.
