Friday 17 July 2015

Animal - Instinct


Tracklist:-

1. Dial
2. Blank
3. Sick
4. Dark Room
5. Worthless
6. Guilty

I've been pondering what metalcore sounds like in today's musical climate. Okay, so it's just a tag made up by journalists who have to categorize everything to make it sell, but it's stuck and it's not going anywhere. That pondering moment has led me to Albany, NY band Animal and their EP Instinct, which was released last year by We Are Triumphant Records. There's not a great deal of info out there about Animal, but I'm sincerely hoping they fill the gap left by The Red Chord and Shadows Fall!

Instinct begins Dial and it’s extended sample before Animal launches into some djent-friendly groove on Blank. This strain of metal is huge in America and has been for sometime now. It’s by no means bad but it’s not what I was expecting I guess. The mix of big breakdowns and atonal screams shows that Animal has studied their market hard and settled upon a sound that will gain them fans from the Rise Records crowd. They show some European flair on Sick, with some syncopated guitar riffs and a clinical approach to song-writing and production values. Animal pushes their sound in a heavier direction on Dark Room, but it doesn’t escape the fact that there is atmosphere missing here. I’m talking about the kind of atmosphere that melody and ambience creates. Thankfully as if they’ve read my mind, things begin to pick up on Worthless. There is some lead work going on and Animal seem to  stretch their influences a bit more. Guilty is their rallying cry and it’s pace does work in their favour. It’s safe to say that Instinct isn’t going to re-write the metalcore blueprint but Animal are ploughing a down -tempo furrow of their own choosing, that nobody’s going to get in the way of. I hope they find their true sound with future records.

Here's the lyric video to Worthless:-



You can grab Instinct CDs from here - http://www.victorymerch.com/merch/label/wearetriumphant

We Are Triumphant Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wearetriumphant

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