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I am hereby declaring an injunction against bands that follow the trends, unless, of course, they are one of the bands that
started the trend. I am getting tired of death metal bands with heavy metalcore leanings waltzing into my courtroom under
the guise of being death metal. For they are not. But, one consolation, at least they are not Slipknot.
Animosity is actually quite talented at what they do, and it is unfair to completely lump them into the group that I described
in the first paragraph. I am reminded of Dying Fetus and Misery Index when hearing them. They do a good job at switching between
growl vocals and the more screech vocals. Even their breakdowns are more elongated, more like how a metal breakdown should
be. They use the groove in their rhythm section to provide the motion and feeling, instead of a chug. (They even use their
bass guitar in a way that it is not useless, and adds another sound and dimension to the mix) This is very commendable. This
album does cover familiar territory, but not in a way that makes me feel like I have heard these songs, or songs just like
them, a million times. This seems like a mature effort, except for the end.
I am not talking about adding a gang shout into their last song, that sounds fine, and quite works for the song. What
they do is they add a track of spoken word at the end which issues a challenge for other people to step up to them, so that
they (Animosity) can physically abuse them. This sounds like something that would be a part of a rap album. This is very immature.
Thus, my judgment is, if you want to be immature, you should stick to playing simplistic New York Tough Guy Hardcore,
or some form of ganster rap. Another option for showing your immaturity is to play popular music. Metal needs to show that
they can be mature, and be taken seriously. This is last piece is not what the scene needs. Therefore, my judgment is that
they take their immaturity elsewhere, or grow up and continue to play somewhat solid death metal.
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