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Band:Autumn Black Album:Beneath The Shadows Record Company:Throwdown Records Writer: Dr. J- Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

AUTUMN BLACK hails from Los Angeles and into ever-increasing in population world of metalcore. On their debut, “Beneath the Shadows” for Throwdown Records, they delve up an album with a slightly mixed bag of influences with aspects of “Atreyu”, “Killswitch Engage”, and “Avenged Sevenfold” thrown in. While I hated to admit I recognize that, it’s what teaching guitar to a younger generation exposes you to. I’ll leave it at that.

As I’ve noted before, I’m not the most devout hardcore/metalcore fan out there, so I go through the albums and try to pull some interesting things from it. Overall, the 12 song release is nothing short of what metalcore has become. Driving riffs, screams – what more does the metalcore fan want? Well, I did find a couple interesting things on this disc. The band does manage to eek out a few notable melodies in songs like “Remembrance” and “Breathe for Me”. There’s the fair share of guitar harmonies intermixed with driving rhythms, which is what seemed to remind me of Avenged Sevenfold the most here. It’s not that Avenged Sevenfold is being mimicked, it seems the style is being utilized and integrated. “Ashes” displays an almost harmonic groove, while “In the Name of a Rose” mixes cleaner vocals and moodier guitar lines. “Salvation” rocks hard. Interestingly enough, those ‘clean’ vocal passages are absent from the song. With that in mind, I have to mention the clean vocals on this album really scream “emo”. If you’re into metalcore, then you’re probably used to it and either love it, or have learned how to ignore it.

While hinting earlier on the mixed bag of influences, it seems the band tries to drawn from areas of black metal, hardcore, thrash, rock – it’s all here in a variety of ways. The “chugging” rhythm is never absent from a song. The bass seem to get lost in the mix for the most part. The drums were strong but sounded heavily triggered. It may have simply been the recording process and mixing that gave them that sound. The ever-essential breakdowns are present. The band accomplishes this well.

Depending on the amount of love you endure for this genre will easily determine your appreciation on this recording. As I’ve admitted before, the vocals are the typical reason for me not getting into the genre. So who’s going to like this? The metalcore fan that must have it all. Besides that, there really isn’t anything mind-numbing, except, literally, the vocals.

Band:Autumn Black Album:Beneath The Shadows Record Company:Throwdown Records Writer: Iain Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

Now I already wrote this review once on Autumn Black but my computer shut off on me when I was finishing the last sentence the stupid thing shut down on me. Anyway ‘Beneath the Shadows’ is terribly unoriginal. On top of that the fact that I am listening to this CD for another time will only hurt the overall rating of the album because I am tired of hearing the same boring metalcore over and over again.

Sure the album sounds good production wise, but the sound is the exact same as every other band the gets a constant rotation on ‘Headbanger’s Ball.’ The guitars have the traditional crunch to them, the bass adds a nice bit of low end, the vocals are layered well but the drums leave a little to be desired. They just sound too electronic for my tastes.

Having reviewed one of the most creative metalcore bands that I am aware of a few weeks ago, Textures, ‘Beneath the Shadows’ by Autumn End falls short of all hopes I had for the album. Song after song follows the pattern of verse, breakdown, chorus, breakdown, verse, breakdown, and chorus. Now I don’t know about you but anytime an album has the same song structure the entire way through the album I usually don’t listen to the CD more than once.

Singer Kaelo James is nearly annoying as the incessant breakdowns. Seriously he sounds like a poor hardcore front man mixed with a singer of a parody black metal band. The back up vocals that usually kick in on the choruses is the standard clean vocals of any metalcore band and they get annoying after a while. The entire vocal section of Autumn Black is replaceable on the tip of a hat since every metalcore band playing in a garage somewhere has the same vocal styles. James just needs to find something unique about his voice.

Guitarist Ruben Platt, Jonathan Koch and bassist Albert Platt are some of the most boring musicians I have ever heard. On the entire album there is not one interesting riff. You would think that a band trying so hard to ride the metalcore wave would want to separate themselves a little bit from the crowd, but apparently not.

The drums on ‘Beneath the Shadows’ sound terribly electronic. I am not saying that they were faked, but if they weren’t they were done on an electronic kit. The result is that everything with the exception of the kick drums sounds dead. Add to that the playing is very simple and repetitive and you have a poor drum performance.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I am not the largest metalcore fan. That said, I wouldn’t give any album a review it didn’t earn. Autumn Black earned a 2.5 out of 10.

Band:Autumn Black Album:Beneath The Shadows Record Company:Throwdown Records Writer: Iain Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

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