Postmortem Promises | ‘On Broken Foundations’

Deathcore. It’s a trend at the moment, with labels and bands alike hopping on. This band are part of it. That shouldn’t take away from their music (nay, their product?), but I cant help feeling that it does. We saw it with thrash. We’ll see it again with something else.

Partly - mostly, perhaps - it’s the image I don’t dig. It leaves a sour taste on the eyeballs. To me, it says ‘nice’. There’s no rebellion in it, and if metal’s look isn’t about rebellion any more then it’s lost the plot. But enough of prejudices.

The biggest problem with Postmortem Promises is that they’re not saying anything. You can hear so much Cryptopsy in here - or Cryptopsy minus the blasts - that it’s saddening they didnt pick up the invenive streak that used to make the speedy Canadians great.

These Essex lads have an impressive chunk to their sound, but it’s as if once they found it, they decided that was enough, and hung around chunking contentedly on it rather than write any riffs worth listening to.

It’s mostly mid paced, plodding death metal, with the occasional snappy break. The drums sound as processed as you’ve guessed by this stage, leading again to suspicions that a good studio job is obcsuring a serious lack of something in here.

Exactly what that is isn’t clear, given that ‘Self Righteous’ shows some fantastic and colourful legato lead playing. It’s a shame the muddy boredom of the album’s rhythm guitar is pretty much the only show in town; more of this stuff would have been a valuable addition. So they can play alright. It just seems that they dont apply themselves well enough to the crucial job of variety.

The gurgling vocals are a total and utter snooze. There’s no malice, no agenda, no nothing except a repetitive cookie monster’s cough.

‘Sickening’ is dull, while ‘The Burden Of Knowledge’, with it’s nice Obituary influence here and there, is lumpen. Plus its blasts are a bit fey.

It’s all very well being in a scene, having the links, being able to get a massive tone out of your guitar rig, and all that. Good music has to be central though, and that’ll shine through whatever category it’s coming out of. This isn’t it, really. It’s just off-puttingly repetitive and creatively challenged.

The most exciting thing about it is the prospect of turning it off and reaching for a real death metal that’s older than half the band.

2.4 / 5 - Earl Grey ::: 20/07/10