Alexandria
Frailty
3.9
Right. I know it's a demo....but...I mean...What the fuck is this? Cradle of Filth meets traditional metal meets the North Layton Jr High glee club after five too many bong rides, with a mix that makes you wonder how they forgot to replace the guide vocal tracks with the finals. This is a confusing record is what I am saying. And unfortunately not in the "cool, didn't see that coming" kind of way. In the "how did this band get into a studio" way.
If that were all, it would be bad enough, but the band sounds like they tried to combine eight or nine song ideas into four tracks and forgot to rehearse the transitions. Maybe they were in a hurry and had to make it up as they went? The transitions are so awkward you want to find the band and just stop them for the sake of pity. Add to this one of the worst - worst - solos I have ever heard in the song "Nightfall" and you have the makings of a legendarily bad record.
This is a bit odd, because the band seems to be pretty good about half the time. As a listener you find yourself trying to put the songs into some kind of context, but something always happens to fuck it up and you are left scratching your head. If it makes it any more clear, I will say that the vocal-less track "Revelation" is easily the most consistent and best track on here. But it has some of the same problems as the other songs.
The quality of musicianship is hard to pinpoint. The rhythm guitars and rhythm section, except when doing a transition, are actually pretty good. The lead guitar is either very good or fucking awful, depending on some criteria we are not privy to. The female lead vocalist is far too wispy to make this music work, even apart from how deep she is in the mix. Her voice doesn't work at all with this music, but she seems to be able to hit the notes. The male vocal is mostly inaudible and pompously lame when not. But perhaps the real enigma is the mix. The lead guitar is far, FAR too loud. The drums and bass have a good, round, albeit demo sound. The vocals are so far back and so gutted that I can't even pretend to know what the band was after. Unless it was to sound ridiculous.
Bottom line? You don't need this. It's a mess; a shabby, amateurish joke. It's not something you would pay money for or attention to. I paid it all the attention it deserves. You're welcome. To the band - if you made it this far - you do have something worth working on here, I think. At the very least get your transitions down. Build those fucking bridges. Adjust for your vocalist, maybe. But never try to release something like this for review again. The game's at a level that makes this EP, even as a demo, unacceptable. I suspect time was your adversary. Take more in every area and let’s see what you can really do.
