And so the template laid down by Between the Buried and Me gets aped again; chaotic metalcore/tech metal, ambitious, proggy injections, quirky off kilter song structures, soaring arpeggios, etc.. Then throw in some Horse the Band 8 bit styled video game programming and you have Maine’s Last Chance to Reason and their forgetful debut.

Though bands like What’s He Building in There? and The Human Abstract have done a decent job of mimicking Between the Buried and Me, Last Chance to Reason are the first band I can safely say really do it with an almost gimmicky flare and shameless mimicry. The programming tries to be different and off the wall, but ends up being annoying and completely extraneous. If you removed the programming, the songs themselves are still, just pure (and badly done) BTBAM based numbers-just without the brilliance and depth. Just listen to “Me and Tom Brokaw are Like This”, “Madden’s For Noobz” and “Get Awesome” for proof.

With the grating programming it comes across as gimmicky and forced as Dance Club Massacre and Arsonists Get all the Girls, just with less crumbling deathcore breakdowns and more squirly screamo histrionics in line with the rest of this generation’s flailing musical fit throwers. Think earlier Fear Before the march of Flames with a Nintendo soundtrack accompaniment-yeah it’s that awful.

I really tried to find something positive to say about this release as I respect Tribunal as a label, but this release is pretty damn wretched and an obvious attempt at copying a band that have pretty much perfected their chosen style. And I’m not ripping this because its copying one of my favourite bands ever, I ripping it because it copying one of may favourite bands ever really badly.

[Visit the band's website]

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