I vaguely remember seeing these guys pop up on my Facebook feed a year or so ago for the video for “Possessed“.  I recall the fairly average metalcore, but loving the female vocals and keyboards of Aimy Miller.

So when this promo showed up,  I have to admit along with Miller, it was morbid curiosity that made me check it out, as well as name dropping the likes of early Bleeding Through, Winds of Plague, Make Them Suffer (whose Sean Haramis appears on “Gloom”) and The Breathing Process– some of my major jams in the mid 00s.  And expecting a bit of a 10 years too late train wreck of symphonic metalcore glossed up as ‘black metal’, I gave it a few listens. And you know what? It’s actually not bad.

It certainly does hearken back to those bands that added keyboards to metalcore, and has a bit of pseudo black metal that imbues the mid career, not quite black metal, not quite metalcore/melodeath albums of Carnifex (whose Scott Lewis also shows up on “The Wicked”). But it’s Aimy Miller who steals the show. The keyboards are well done, neither cheesy or over bearing but adding a nice touch of symphonic elegance to the expected back drop of tight and well produced At The Gates/The Black Dahlia Murder styled hack n slash metal. She also adds some really well done female vocal breaks to the proceedings. Not Evanescence-y whine, but more an classical, early, The Project Hate vibe. Her additions to the likes of “The Wicked”, killer “From the Grave”, and closer “After Death” make OK tracks, really rather good.

Otherwise the vocals are the expected high pitch rasps of Joseph Sinclair, which is trying a bit too hard to be eviiiiiiiiiil black metal, and a arrays of generic growls and screams. And while generic was a word that was on the tip of my tongue, every time I’d start to utter the word, Miller and the band deliver something above average that reeled me in. Not only the tracks with Miller but “Hallowed Ground”, truly enjoyable standout “Victoria” (which actually and surprisingly mailed clean male singing) and “Roseblood” actually had me rather entertained.

It’s unfortunate that Miller is no longer in the band, as I’m not sure how She Must Burn can replace such a talent and major part of the band’s sound as without her they seem to possibly be are just another metalcore band. But we will see and i will at least give them another go should they survive Miller’s departure.

[Visit the band's website]

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