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MyChildren MyBride

Unbreakable

Written by: PP on 15/05/2008 15:43:37

Ah yes, another band that divides the opinions of the scene into two camps: those who absolutely despise them, and those who absolutely love them. Our magazine tries to dodge scene politics as much as possible in order to stay at least reasonably objective, but it\'d be impossible to not be tilted one way or another with a band like MyChildren MyBride. Brutal breakdowns? Check. Fierce screamed vocals in the vein of Darkest Hour / Bring Me The Horizon? You bet. Supplemented with technical guitar work designed to make one\'s ears crave for more? Welcome to \"Unbreakable\", the bands debut album that\'s about to summon a storm to the metalcore scene. Whether it\'ll be good or bad, only time will tell.

The opening track \"Faithless\" gives you a good impression on what the rest of the album has to offer. The rhythm guitar shreds, the lead guitar spits out slick fretwork, and the vocalist shrieks in the same clean screaming style as the Darkest Hour singer, drawing close parallels between the two bands straight from the start. Halfway through the song you\'ll get a Gwen Stacy-styled brutal breakdown, followed by amazing fretwork that leaves you no other choice than pulling out your air guitar. \"Severance\", \"Headshot\", and \"Choke\" are other examples of the fantastic twin-guitar harmonies clearly influenced by the Gothenburg metal bands.

On the other side we have songs like \"On Wings Of Integrity\", which rely on creating brutal trend-mosh pits: massive build ups, crazy breakdowns perfectly suitable for waving your arms around, you know the drill. Mosh-obsessed metalcore/hardcore hybrid fans will surely appreciate these, but for the rest such as myself, the songs sound kind of empty and soulless compared to the finger-tapping mastery shown on tracks like \"Boris The Blade\", for instance.

Indeed, it is when the two guitarists are allowed to demonstrate their melodic metalcore riff capabilities to full extent that the band is at their very best. During these moments there shouldn\'t anyone out there able to deny their masterful guitar harmonies, even if their other vocalist sounds almost identical to the dude from Darkest Hour. This is only their debut, and it is already one of the better metalcore releases in the last year or two, so I\'m feeling hopeful about the guys. If they\'re able to phase out the meaningless breakdowns in favor of a more flowing metalcore sound, as they already have on many tracks, All That Remains will have to watch out; a new contender for the throne of metalcore is out there - and they\'re hungry.

Download: Faithless, Boris The Blade
For the fans of: Darkest Hour, All That Remains, Bring Me The Horizon
Listen: Myspace
Buy: iTunes

Release date 26.02.2008
Solid State