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ENDLESS DARK
www.facebook.com/endlessdarkband
Having just let the metaphorical ink dry on my last review, where I mentioned how many modern day metal bands leave me completely cold, next up comes a perfect example of what I mean. Endless Dark and their EP ‘Made Of Glass’ is absolutely everything I dislike about modern metal. Metalcore/pop-punk songs laced with lashings of emo-flavoured depression and choruses written purely to gain airplay on modern rock radio and TV stations. Screamo vocals that sound like a bad voice-over for a kids’ cartoon and about as tuneful as my stomach and arse were last weekend when I was ill. Clean vocals liberally spaced throughout to try and counteract the indigestion caused by the screaming, but which only make the pain worse. Lyrics (when you can understand them) that bring a huge cheese factory to mind and a ballad so cloyingly false that it could only have been written to try and impress the young girls that will turn up at the gigs and so dull that it makes Boyzone look positively tuneful!

Granted, I’m not the target audience for bands like Endless Dark, that ‘pleasure’, in this country at least, awaits the readers of Kerrang, Rock Sound and increasingly Metal Hammer. Endless Dark are indeed an Icelandic band, but the music industry in the UK seems to throw stuff like this at us with alarming regularity because a majority of the music buying public have always bought what has been force fed them rather than deciding, for themselves, what they actually like. That happens to a lesser degree within the metal and rock genres but, nonetheless, it still happens. Endless Dark are not personally to blame for this sad set of affairs though. They are young guys (with an average age of just 20) and are probably jumping up and down in ecstasy when listening to comments such as “The intensive rhythms and drum fills makes the music constantly evolve and excite”; “Their unique combination of HUGE metallic riffs with actual TUNES, guarantees their name will be on everyone’s lips” and “Experience the explosive force of Endless Dark!” There is, of course, no doubt they can play their instruments pretty well but they are certainly not unique by any stretch of the imagination, unless unique actually means sounding like every other young metalcore band in existence. As for actual tunes, well, I found it pretty tough to hear any and the only song that actually stood out from the rest was the previously mentioned ballad, and that’s only because it’s played at a different tempo. By the way, ‘that ballad’ must also be in contention for accolade of ‘worst song title’. I’m trying to work out who thought that ‘Awful Place’ would be a good title for a song, other than it describes my whereabouts after having to listen to it!
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Self-released
EP
MADE OF GLASS
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Review by Rick Tilley
RUNNING TIME:
18:35
RELEASE DATE:
1st June 2013
TRACK LISTING
1) Fading From You
2) Creature
3) Cold, Hard December
4) Awful Place
5) Shooting Star Press
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
Iceland
"Metalcore/pop-punk songs laced with lashings of emo-flavoured depression and choruses written purely to gain airplay on modern rock radio and TV stations."
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