More Christian metal here, though this time more in the form of the choppy, technical deathcore with melodic chops akin to For Today, A Thousand Time Repent, Hereafter An Odyssey and such.

Obviously, folks that hate deathcore and Christian metal have already clicked of this review, but if you enjoy both or either your could do worse that California’s Underneath the Gun- they mix the musical style of all the above bands as well as non Christian outfits like After the Burial, Conducting From the Grave, Within the Ruins, Fate and Burn the Masses-that’s to say there’s burly dual vocaled deathcore/metalcore with a few sweeps and arpeggios that cull from Between the Buried and Me.

In a lot of ways Underneath the Gun remind me of Metal Blade’s Fate and Mediaskare’s Burn The Masses in that these guys are literally just kids, kids with serious skill and musicianship, but they still need to flesh out that skill just a bit more into slightly better songs as opposed to being all over the place and often stringing together riffs, breakdowns and spurts of brutality littered with some solos (“A Sharp Definition of Dull” and “No Place For Pardon” are a perfect examples). Also, vocalist Harrison Degrote, when between genre requisite feral screams and deep bellows sometimes has this nasally emo/punk sneer yell, that’s a bit out of place and exposed his actual age.

That being said, this is one of Ferret’s better recent releases as tracks like “Reflection of the Commonwealth” and closer “Breathing New Lungs” with their sumptuous mid song solos, “Penitence”, “Shawshank Absolution”, hefty close of “Rising Words” show plenty of appeal towards the bands target audience as well as promise for further development, they are just not quite there yet.

[Visit the band's website]

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