I’ve long championed Facedown Records and their oft maligned Christian metal, but of late other than Your Memorial, Hands and A Home for Home, the label seems to have really fallen into a rut- with the likes of For Today, Gideon, Altars, War of Ages, Leaders and Onwards to Olympas, they seem to basically be recycling bands that are all interchangeable; breakdown filled hardcore/deathcore with soaring clean vocals and choruses. It’s so formulaic its getting tiring, and with a band like Onwards to Olympas releasing 3 albums in 3 years that sound the same, the scene and this style just seems completely redundant right now.
I’m trying not to get down on the label or Christian metal, as I’ve long defended both at this site and others, but they aren’t helping me put at all with releases like this. There’s absolutely nothing on Indicator of note, and I think even ardent Christian metal and deathcore fans would find Indicator pretty run of the mill and retreaded. It seems like the band just re cut and rerecorded different riffs and choruses from their last two releases, and just strung them together in a different order. There’s gruff death metal vocals, burly breakdowns, some melodic leads, a graceful moments to remind you they are christian (‘Breakthrough”) and lots of uplifting, sugary clean choruses. The likes of “Strange Forest”, “Division”, “Ceasing Time” and”The Truth in Foundations” are all basically the same song. Only the rumbling and clean vocal-less “Royal State” with its The Acacia Strain like lurch remotely caught my ear. Christian metal really needs a shot in the arm right now.
I’ll wait and see what the upcoming Those Who Fear and reunited Overcome offer, as they seem to be a bit beefier than the labels current trend, but if you are looking for some Christian metal with balls, look no further than the latest Becoming the Archetype release rather than this cookie cutter, scene filling disposable music.
Interesting review. Funnily enough, I feel the same way. I haven’t tried this album yet but I’ve always supported such bands, except the “scene” is starting to fill up rapidly with similar-sounding groups. A couple that I do like are My Heart to Fear and Fit For a King (though the latter band has utterly awful clean singing, but it can be overlooked).
I really didn’t care too much for the latest BTA tape though ;(
on Dec 14th, 2012 at 22:56” the “scene” is starting to fill up rapidly with similar-sounding groups.” ???
Starting to fill up? The metalcore scene is already plenty flooded and over-run with same-sounding bands – has been for years now. I even helped record and produce a demo for a local band that sounded like this. Which is why I’ve “retired” from producing other bands. It’s all the same now.
on Dec 15th, 2012 at 10:30I think hes referring to this style of christian metal
on Dec 15th, 2012 at 12:13Yeah I specifically meant this “facedown-core” christian metalcore thing. It’s a fairly specific niche but one that, for a while, was pretty worthwhile. Now it’s just as oversaturated and homogenized as the other sub-subgenres (???) of metalcore
on Dec 28th, 2012 at 12:04