Beneath the Sky - What Demons Do To Saints   

Keep moving folks, nothing to see here

Some would have us believe that Beneath the Sky are leading the charge of the “new breed” of metal bands; those that mix hardcore and death metal, but screamo vocals, double kicks and chugging guitars do not a metal band make.

Bands such as Carcass, Hypocrisy and Satyricon are listed in the promo material as being comparative entities though after hearing this album several times I am still unable to see how this statement is valid. The band has much more in common with the other bands listed for comparison such as Hatebreed and Trivium. There is much more ‘core’ than anything else going on here.

One of the biggest detractors on What Demons Do To Saints is that it seems the overwhelming majority of the songs follow the same general formula which consists of melody played in major key followed by a breakdown, which is followed by another happy melody, then maybe a bridge and then more breakdowns. This template, or any template for that matter, gets boring very fast and by the time you are more than a few songs into this disc it is clear that there are unlikely to be any surprises waiting around the corner. Every song bleeds into each other with very little to distinguish them.

The thing that is so annoying here is that Beneath the Sky are yet another example of a band that seem capable enough of playing their instruments but are totally inept when it comes to crafting music that doesn’t sound like a gazillion other hardcore bands out there. If it weren’t for vocalist Joey Nelson then I seriously doubt the band would stand out at all. In fact Nelson has quite the voice for a proper metal band and should perhaps consider moving the band further in that direction.

The production on What Demons Do To Saints also does it few favours as it is muddy and noisy yet lacks the level of balls necessary to make the material sound heavy. Of particular note are the drums which sound awful with the kicks and snare down very low in the mix and the cymbals much louder and tinny sounding.

If this is what the “new breed” of metal is going to sound like then I’m abandoning ship because I want nothing to do with it.

(Victory Records/Stomp Distribution)