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VERA GRACE
www.facebook.com/veragrace
So just who are Vera Grace? A quick read through the press sheet mentions "youthful five-some", "school mates" and that perennially dreaded label, "metalcore". With metalcore regarded as a derogatory, put-down term by many established bands and an empty, meaningless genre label by others, my own view is to remain open-minded by anything branded as such due to said term's overuse (and misuse). However, here it obviously equates to bland, generic shit, for that's generally what Vera Grace have succeeded in creating. The EP is fairly well produced and sounds okay, but the songwriting is pure genericism through and through. A few variations in time signatures and tempo changes here and there show the band are more than capable as a unit, with individual performance on guitar, bass and drums competent enough, but any attempted innovation and metalcore breakdown predictability sounds forced and contrived rather than having a natural flow. The most pungent part of this steaming turd though is the "singing". Whoever's responsible for it too often sounds like he's attempting to clear his throat than actually sing - ie. he growls with little conviction over much of the music with uninventive two-dimensional phrasing. Clean vocals occasionally rear their head although annoy through their dissonance and actually make the throat-clearing growls comparatively preferable. On the plus side, I have heard far worse than this and there is a small amount of promise sporadically on show but, overall, avoid this EP just as you would avoid walking in shit along the pavement.
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Self-released
EP
ROTATIONS
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Review by Mark Holmes
RUNNING TIME:
15:25
RELEASE DATE:
14th May 2012
TRACK LISTING
1) Wasting Away
2) Lost
3) Esther's Imagination
4) Rotations
5) I Am the Earth
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
UK
"The most pungent part of this steaming turd...is the "singing"."
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