Much like Animosity when they released Shut it Down in 2003, or Decapitated’s Winds of Creation debut in 2000, California’s Fate is a group of very talented young teens plying thier chosen genre, in this case crumbly, growling death core laced with Between the Buried and Me-like arpeggios.

Despite members barely out of high school upon the release of this debut, Fate display a surprising level of maturity and skill despite the overall clichéd-ness of the genre they have chosen to ply. Lying somewhere between With Dead Hands Rising and the heavier end of the deathcore spectrum (Whitechapel, Annotations of An Autopsy, etc), Fate, while certainly reliant on the genres regular elements (breakdowns, death metal vocals, At The Gates riffage and pseudo grindcore blast beats) manage to make the style their own, adding flourishes of arpeggio laden melody into the 10 fairly short tracks. And where a band like For Today failed in their recent attempt to mix a more sonorous element to deathcore, Fate, like A Thousand Times Repent is relatively successful despite their youth.

Admittedly, if you hate the whole kids playing death metal, post-Job For a Cowboy explosion, this won’t change your mind, but for those like me, who enjoy breakdown fueled heft, Vultures is one of the better examples I have heard recently. Most of the album’s highlights come in the form of the arpeggios that litter the expected girthy chaos; For example, whereas most deathcore albums open with some sort of huge chug, Vultures opens with a 39 second arpeggio (“Apostasn”) then move abruptly onto the heaving noodling of “Psychopathic Diary”, then deliver the delicate heft of “Your Creed is Greed”, acoustic laced breakdown of “Battlegrounds Beneath My Feet”, killer instrumental title track (arguably the most enjoyable and melodic few moments I’ve heard from a band of this style), solo work of “Call me the Apocalypse” and the albums sternest cut, “Decapitate Delilah” as well as more developed closer ‘Ruins of Necropolis”, Fate show a grasp of the genre that belies their age and put many of their like aged and like minded myspace peers to shame as far as skill and song writing ability.

Of course, the band often falls into the rut of blast, squeal, grind, growl, breakdown (“Harrowing Infidelity”, “Of Riddance and Innocence”) like many of their many peers and clones, but it’s never breakdown overkill and vocalist Justin Krahn is trying a little too hard (as is usually reliable producer Zach Ohren), but considering his balls dropped only a couple of years ago, he’s adequate. However, when taken as a whole, there is a lot of promise for these kids if they show an Animosity like growth and development. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more assuming they avoid the line-up issue that seem to plague the genre and that their parents let them go on tour and continue recording as long as they eat all their dinner and do their homework before bedtime….

[Visit the band's website]

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