The sound of this album makes me think of Throwdown and I just couldn’t escape this comparison. It is in the slow to mid-paced groove where the band feels most comfortable and the fast moments are really few and far between. While the band isn’t on the level of Throwdown in their prime, they still deliver some mean and uncompromising shit.
Lyricalwise, the album is filled with aggressiveness and the vocalist Ryan is dropping some seriously anti-social verses about self pride, brotherhood and bringing pain upon those who oppose him. This is the way I like it actually. While I overall enjoyed the album, ETTS’s weak links seem to be the lack of good ideas to give their songs some variation. The band doesn’t try any new tricks and instead rely on a well set out formula of mosh driven hardcore. While they manifest some good ideas now and then , this is not enough to keep the album interesting for more than a couple of spins. I mean, they got what it takes to make a good music, whether it’s a solid musicianship or angry and convincing vocals, but somehow there aren’t many moments here that excite me. The albums opens up with some solid tracks and then the whole excitement seems to be disappearing somewhere along the way. Despite some strong moments early on, the album as a whole sounds relatively flat. They get my blood rushing again with the last song Live And Die Honor. Never mind its cheesy title , the band brings a lot more emotion out of this song with the right groove and nice guitar lines. It seems ETTS is finally starting to get things more vibrant and too bad it’s happening in the last song.
I know they’re working on a new record right now so I hope they will be able to carve out more of their own identity with the new songs. Overall, this is not a bad album and if you want just something to mosh to, it should play its part. I’ll be checking out another ETTS album for sure but it’s gonna need some more creativity to succeed.
Author: Dloogi
Label:Seventh Dagger
Year: 2008
