posted 09/19/2008 (Fri) @ 05:13 pm
>>> Music Reviews
Eyes Set to Kill - Reach (2008)
Metalcore / Pop / Rock
No, Dammit, We’re Not There Yet!
- Intro
- A Sketch in Black and White
- Reach
- Darling
- Violent Kiss
- Young Blood Spills Tonight
- Where We Started
- Into The Night
- Give You My All
- Liar In The Glass
- Only Holding On
- Behind These Eyes
While they should be commended for their initiative, the ladies and gentlemen of Eyes Set to Kill produce music that is flat as a board and easy to nail down into one overpopulated, facepalm-worthy genre. Yeah, you already know which one.
“Melodic” screamo/hardcore. Like Lacuna Coil, the female vocals are nice, but ruined by their surroundings. Changes of pace are much needed in this music. Or any kind of music, for that matter. Unfortunately, Alexia Rodriguez’s breathy, dramatic vocalizations are nothing new to anyone who’s heard a Paramore song. Paramore are not particularly unique, either, but at least something like “Misery Business” deploys the “soft, melodic feel of female vocals” on legitimate earworms.
As for the quasi-masculine yelp screaming and “Ohio Is For Lovers” cookie monster howls… well, I’m running out of original nasty things to say. Here goes anyway.
You all sound like you’re two years old and throwing a temper tantrum somewhere off in the distance while the grown-ups are trying to enjoy their music. Parents of hardcore kids with musical tendencies: just give me a damn break already. Please. Be a parent.* Shut your kids up. Beat them black and blue if you have to. They might even like it in some cases.
Eyes Set to Kill are at their best when they embrace melody and pop structure. “Where We Started” is perhaps the most melodic, heavy tune on-board here, beginning with a lilting piano riff which is soon joined by some ham-fisted grunge guitar. The token ballad, “Give You My All,” reveals that sans vitriol and loud guitars, their sound is more akin to an unreleased collaboration between Jewel and Avril Lavigne: heart-on-the-sleeve, crying-in-the-dark, but with just a touch or lip-curl of “bitch” to keep their edge.
Or maybe it’s more like Alanis? “Listen to all of this glass shatter // It pierced my ears and made them bleed.” To be fair, balladry like this tends to come off quite a sight better when the woman singing it is actually singing in a register which comes natural. At least they can lord (lady?) that over all the other ladyjeans-wearing guyliners they tour with.
Heaviness and volume married to delicacy can work. It can work splendidly. Eyes Set to Kill just don’t bring anything fresh to the table. Fans of female fronted bands in the vein of Paramore or Evanescence might find something to enjoy here, but look elsewhere for innovation, and do your ears and sanity a favor: if you hate cookie-cutter wrist-cutting emo songwriting, treat this like Chernobyl. Stay away!
Eyes Set to Kill - “Reach” music video:
* Image stolen from Maddox without permission, because fuck asking for permission.
Tags: emo, female vocalist, female vocals, hardcore, metalcore, screamo, unoriginal crap
