Though Cleveland Ohio’s Salt the Wound fit the annoying template of modern teen metal band complete with ever changing line up, cocked hats, tight jeans, pierced lips, pre packaged logo and loud shirt designs and an obsession of The Black Dahlia Murder, the bands 2008 debut was OK, and the follow up, complete with promising artwork, actually shows the band to be a little improved.
And while at their heart, the band is right in line with the likes of Inferi, Wretched, Mirror of Dead Faces and Sons of Azrael as far as their competent The Black Dahlia Murder worship, the bands reworked line up has at least injected a bit more hardcore and almost Despised Icon levels of broodle-ness into the mix. Still, that’s not going to change the opinion of a majority of you, as Salt the Wound has that Bring Me The Horizon aura about them that most will judge, and if you simply hate this style of cookie cutter American metal, Salt the Wound definitely are not for you.
For the rest of you, Ares, is decent slab of Hot Topic metal with all the pretenses you’d expect, negative and positive. The slicing The Black Dahlia Murder styled riffs and dual vocals are the bulk of the material with a larger level of breakdowns thrown in complete with some impressive bass drops. The production is solid, the energy is high and the playing level is pretty tight with some high octane moments and some decent rumbles here and there (“Jafar”, “Take a Bow”). That all being said, after the promising more punk/hardcore start to opener “Mutations” and “Foot of the Thrown”, the rest of the album blends together is typically genre reliant prose, if thankfully avoiding interludes, acoustics and faux atmospheres/ambience. Though I’m not sure whats going on with the needlessly 16 minute closing track which revisits “Foot of the Thrown”, ( a demo? Unless its a digital promo/Haulix error).
However, even with Ares, being pretty much full throttle from start to finish, it’s still simply one of those albums that will mire in the swirling mass of similar styled bands right now.
[Visit the band's website]Find more articles with 2009, E.Thomas, Review, Rotten Records, Salt the Wound
Comments
Leave a Reply
What’s Haulix?
on Nov 11th, 2009 at 10:18was wondering about that last track also…ok album, but i don’t think i’ll remember much of it in a month or two.
on Nov 11th, 2009 at 12:36Their first one was much better. I’m a big deathcore fan, but the overabundance of raspy screams/snarls will kill it for me every time. Same reason I can’t stand Suicide Silence. These guys aren’t quite as bad, but it’s a no go in my book.
on Nov 12th, 2009 at 05:57Why even bother reviewing this stuff?? Total garbage trend crap, that won’t be remembered once it’s core fan base passes the age of 20.
on Nov 12th, 2009 at 11:52well “Biff Tannan” I imagine they bother reviewing this stuff so that people can read about it and decide whether or not it sounds like something they would enjoy! More like if you feel that way, why bother commenting?
on Nov 13th, 2009 at 22:19we review everything that’s sent to us, even if we don’t like it – part of our responsibility and also good to keep the labels happy so they keep sending us stuff (which hopefully we will like – and usually do)
on Nov 13th, 2009 at 22:53And people such as myself do really enjoy deathcore or any other “core”, so it’s nice to get a review of albums in that genre. I don’t care about staying power or any of that other shit that people bag on genres for… If it sounds good to me I listen to it. I didn’t care for this album as I stated above, but would not have heard about it other than through this website.
on Nov 14th, 2009 at 05:01not really a great band i like this cd more then there last one but eh there like a deathcore band for noobs.they are breaking up to last show is in january.
on Nov 21st, 2009 at 04:21