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Twelvestep - Roots Of Anger
Release: 2005Label: Demo/self-released
By: Anders
Posted: Jan 22, 2006
This Swedish band is a new acquaintance for me, though they have 3 promotional releases behind them, and this one being their newest. The band calls their music "hard rocking metal", which I after a bunch of listens have decoded as nu-metal, which is an easier way to write it, and why has that term become something bad, for the bands that plays it?
The base is a blend of emotional rock, with clean emotional vocals, a bit whiny at times, and not that interesting to be honest, it is a good break from the more used scream, but becomes boring in time. The plain rock is mixed with hardcore-influenced metal, hard-hitting and angry, though it does at times seem very stale, though that might be an outcome of the rather dull and compressed production. The music in itself isn't that interesting as well, there are some hints from especially System Of A Down once in a while, though not half as good or brilliant as that band, and some more melodic inspirations as well. The guitars are delivering some decent riffs here and there, and some good effects as well, even though it tends to become a bit too strange for its own good. The many breaks used, do also kill the momentum and do often seem disturbing, instead of something good and cool. A more powerful and smashing production would help immensely on the presentation of the band’s material.
There are some hints of greatness once in a while, though the overall impression of the 5 tracks on this promo is dull and a band that doesn't deliver what they would like to. The band has been praised as a really good live band, and that might be the case, though it is much harder to deliver something powerful and effective on an album, if you don't have the means to transfer the energy down on tape, and it seems like that is the case here. Together with the production of the material, which I believe ruins a lot for the band. Twelvestep seems like a band that is heading in the right direction, and I am sure we will see and hear some more direct and hard-hitting material from them in the future, though this one doesn't really cut it.
The base is a blend of emotional rock, with clean emotional vocals, a bit whiny at times, and not that interesting to be honest, it is a good break from the more used scream, but becomes boring in time. The plain rock is mixed with hardcore-influenced metal, hard-hitting and angry, though it does at times seem very stale, though that might be an outcome of the rather dull and compressed production. The music in itself isn't that interesting as well, there are some hints from especially System Of A Down once in a while, though not half as good or brilliant as that band, and some more melodic inspirations as well. The guitars are delivering some decent riffs here and there, and some good effects as well, even though it tends to become a bit too strange for its own good. The many breaks used, do also kill the momentum and do often seem disturbing, instead of something good and cool. A more powerful and smashing production would help immensely on the presentation of the band’s material.
There are some hints of greatness once in a while, though the overall impression of the 5 tracks on this promo is dull and a band that doesn't deliver what they would like to. The band has been praised as a really good live band, and that might be the case, though it is much harder to deliver something powerful and effective on an album, if you don't have the means to transfer the energy down on tape, and it seems like that is the case here. Together with the production of the material, which I believe ruins a lot for the band. Twelvestep seems like a band that is heading in the right direction, and I am sure we will see and hear some more direct and hard-hitting material from them in the future, though this one doesn't really cut it.
Twelvestep website
Kindly supplied by Pure Rock Entertainment
Please note that we don't grade demo-releases, to avoid comparison to label/album-releases.
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