Provoke, Destroy

Vulture

Written by: PP on 13/12/2014 17:50:15

Virginia Beach based newcomers Provoke, Destroy released their debut album "Vulture" earlier this year to little fanfare by the scene and the critics, and the reason for that is obvious: it's too much of a textbook example of sounding generic in this scene. They play a fairly standard brand of metalcore with a few post-hardcore elements added in for good measure. Their songs are riddled with meaningless breakdowns which have been over-compressed in the production department to sound completely lifeless and inorganic, resulting in an overpolished soundscape that has little to no edge to it.

The post-hardcore part of their sound comes from a clean vocalist, whose sugar sweet high pitch melodies add the contrast between the otherwise generic and unvaried screaming that leaves much to be desired for compared to the heavyweights in the genre. Electronic ambiance is of course also present to provide for theatricals in their expression, and the songwriting generally alters between breakdown, symphonic section, whiny clean chorus, and monotonous screams over standard fare metalcore riffage on the background. And so you can see where the word textbook comes into play here, right?

But despite being a prime example of generic metalcore, Provoke, Destroy do manage a couple of alright songs on the album. "Fool's Gold" and "Hellbent" are both examples of something a little more interesting, although both are basically being carried by their solid and catchy chorus melodies rather than the breakdown oriented verse passages. But while decent, there isn't enough to convince anyone why they should listen to Provoke, Destroy instead of going for one of the much bigger names on, say, Rise Records roster these days.

6

Download: Fool's Gold, Hellbent
For the fans of: Miss May I, The Plot In You
Listen: Facebook

Release date 22.07.2014
Indianola Records

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