Aversed

Renewal

Haydee Irizarry-Lead Vocals
Sungwoo Jeong-Guitar/Vocals
Alden Marchand-Guitar
Martin Epstein-Bass
Jeff Saltzman-Drums

 

 

 

1. Prison of Existence

This E.P. begins with this melodic and somber introduction that flows for thirty seconds and then the drums come in to set up the vocals. Wow she has a good sound in my opinion, Haydee really harnesses those melodic death metal growls, but has a really smooth voice for the clean singing. Really smooth, like if you heard her singing clean, you would never know she can flip a switch and get down to death metal vocals.   One thing I am really focusing on is the talent of the other musicians in this band.  Often times you find a female vocalist that has a set of lungs that can go on for long periods of clean singing, and then growls that sound so cool, but the rest of the band is so-so.  Not the case here, this group doesn’t get to use the vocals as the selling point of “female vocalist” just to get a targeted fan base. Nope, everything about this song is crisp, every transition they have gone through all the way to the guitar solo at the 4: 11 mark as brief as it is. It was clean and they come back for about 30 seconds to  set up another guitar solo, only this one has a little bit more behind it.  Killer track, and I am really digging the vocals for the last minute of the song.

 

2. Renewal

I love the simple drum intro, and the guitar riff that follows. It has a great driving rhythm, just gets you moving.  And they take it down a level for the first verse, she brings the volume and tone down. The first lines of vocals are clean, but building Setting things up for the harsh vocals to take over the next lines. The more I listen to this, the more I feel like Aversed is picking up with the melodic metal from the mid to late 90’s and refreshing it.  I mean I can’t be the only one that digs the transition at the :45 second mark.  This is a song you can tap your foot to,  it has a great rhythm, and the tempo matches to make this song a really enjoyable track off this E.P.  This song has   that magnetic characteristic, it’s really catchy, and fun to follow along to. I will always add points to a song based on if it brings certain emotions that bring me back to my younger days.  When you hear something and it makes you smile, or say fuck yeah.  Music that gets you moving and makes you break out the air drums or air guitar while listening to the track. This is a perfect example of that.

 

3. Living Denial

A cool but bri4ef drum fill sets up the song, this time the song has a much slower feel. But I dig the layered vocals from Haydee, and then right at the :39 mark they kick things into high gear. I love this transition they went through to this point.   This song doesn’t sounds like what you would have expected from the first thirty seconds.  They completely took this song in a different direction than I anticipated, and damn I am glad they did. This song is catchy as hell, and I love those guitar tones. I can’t really tell you much about the guitars since I don’t play, but I know when I hear something I like and the guitars on this track sounds great, this song sounds awesome.  And who expected the vocals at the 3:47 mark? I did not, Haydee has more range and sound than we expected. Not sure if any backing vocals besides her are being layered in.  However the more I listen to this E.P. the more I am digging the talent of this band.

 

4. Sorrowful Eyes

So this song starts out with a nice simple melody and then picks the tempo up. I am listening to this and wondering what happened here?  I mean the song is good musically.  But I feel as though maybe not all songwriting is done by the same person, or persons.  And this song is a track that makes me feel that way. Because it doesn’t really sounds like what I heard from the previous three tracks. Sure there are harsh vocals double bass, distortion. However when the song kicks in, it sounded like a different band, with the same vocalist, and different ideas. This song to me sounds like a hard rock song.  Something I would hear on the radio, I think they are showing that they have a bigger range than you would expect.  The song is good, I think though, that it takes away from the E.P. a little.  Solid song, but it sounds too radio rock friendly to me. Like they went from being a band like Arch Enemy, to a band like Evanescence.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a time for a song like this, however I just didn’t feel it.

 

5. Aversion

This song is a little more in the same direction that the first three were going. I dig the beginning of the song. The first ten seconds or so is cool, and they transition again a few times before the first verse. Which really reminds me of that 90’s melodic death metal like arch enemy and Crisis. Once you get passed the first verse they hit you with a guitar solo right around the 2 minute mark, and damn. It’s a subtle solo that speaks volumes, not all solos have to be the fastest shredding solo. Think of it like gravity blasts for drums. Are they cool, yes, are they always necessary? No they are not, but to rip a solo that has some soul behind it, I will enjoy that every time.  This song is just shy of eight minutes long and they sure as shit pack a lot into this one.

 

After listening to this E.P. I gotta say I really dig it. Aversed has a sound very similar to bands like early Arch Enemy, they have a fresh sound that’s blended with late 90’s melodic death metal.  They seem like a force to be reckoned with when it comes to their sound.   I like the dauntless delivery. They are so confident and you can hear it in the music.  The first three tracks are killer, Sorrowful Eyes was an interesting choice. I’m not going to say the song was bad it just didn’t affect me the same way that the rest of the E.P. did.  Now I need to point out, that one song out of 5 is not bad by any means, and this E.P. is quite possibly going to take this band places. I can’t listen to this E.P. and think that they are lacking drive and ambition. They definitely don’t lack anything when it comes to their music, they fill their music to the maximum capacity.  Melodic metal/ Melodic death metal fans will appreciate this E.P. – 6.5/10 \m/

 

 

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