Within
The End Is Near...You Have Been Warned
5.4
Synopsis:
Though playing Christian metalcore and hailing from Tennessee, Within are far cry from The Showdown....
Review:
Call me charitable, call me a hopeful, but I always try to give Christian metalcore/hardcore (Godcore?) the benefit of the doubt , as they have an uphill battle with the blinkered metal community who feel Christians do no belong in metal. Now, I should emphasize, I am NOT an Christian, far from it, so my sympathy for such bands is far more music based, but bands like August Burns Red, Life In Your Way, Nehemiah, The Showdown, As Cities Burn, Becoming the Archetype, Inked In Blood, Foreknown and Alove For Enemies (just to name a few) have shown me personally, that Christians can rock the fuck out with the best of them. However, bands like Within, Bloodlined Calligraphy, Nehemah, Winter Solstice, Flee the Seen, Blessed By A Broken Heart, Bloody Sunday, and War of Ages (though I will hold judgement until I hear the promising Pride of the Wicked), seem to be undoing the work of all the good/great bands with their wholly generic and forced take on the genre
Rant over. Within are you typical, second rate emo/metalcore Christian band with a slight Nodes of Ranvier, Evergreen Terrace rock vibe going on. There’s lots of clean emo vocals and soaring dual melodies mixed with scathing screams and the occasional breakdown, but none of it is effective or memorable, and I like this stuff. The cookie cutter, mix and match, core by numbers approach of this record is often overbearing and sigh inducing (i.e. “If This Means Death....”, “Moment of Desperation”, “Persecution Brings Prophecy”, requisite instrumental “Letter to Mary”), as only the rarest moments of genuine creativity and originality that peek through the vast levels of eye rolling cliche long enough to be recognized; the Unearth-ish “In Suffering My Joy is Obtained”, the deft layering “Adoration” and the slight southern rock of “Devour the Weak” being the only tracks that seem not culled from another band. And as you can tell the Christian lyrics are pretty heavy handed, certainly too heavy handed for the God-curious metal fan looking for something to break the usual negativity and cliches the rest of metal has to offer.
Though it may seem Within is my sacrificial lamb of god regarding Christian metal, the fact remains, this album's lyrics could be about violating Carmen Electra, something I am very much into, and it would change the fact this is a very generic, trend following record with little musical merit outside the Christian scene.
