Substratum
Substratum
Swords & Chains Records
2017
Substratum are a Seattle five piece, female fronted no less, but don’t think for a moment that female fronted equals pseudo-operatic, corset wearing, “beauty and the beast”, sort of metal... their front lady is pretty butch and sounds rather Leather-ish in the mannerisms and overall style.
The band wears their “epic” heavy metal influences like a badge of honor and while Hayes & Nazaryan are doing a pretty nice job with the guitars, with riffs that sound quite original and inventive and have a nice interplay between them – the overall style doesn’t seem to have graduated and matured properly when it comes to the songs themselves. The vocals are gruff and powerful but for some reason don’t quite do it for me, despite being passionate and all, I guess they sound a bit too “one dimensional” too often. So maybe it’s the melodies that the band has come up with for the vocals that are not quite cutting it for me. Taking the really dry and dump yet not all too clear production – that old-school fetishists might cream over, but I can’t seem able to appreciate, the result sinks just a bit more, but it’s not the biggest issue I have with the album as I mentioned before.
While on paper a Leather meets Omen sort of hybrid sounds like a good idea, the execution isn’t the best it could be and neither are the songs, despite some really good guitars. Maybe later and with a somewhat cleaner production, I’d feel the impact that these nice sharp guitars are trying to make? Who knows...
The band wears their “epic” heavy metal influences like a badge of honor and while Hayes & Nazaryan are doing a pretty nice job with the guitars, with riffs that sound quite original and inventive and have a nice interplay between them – the overall style doesn’t seem to have graduated and matured properly when it comes to the songs themselves. The vocals are gruff and powerful but for some reason don’t quite do it for me, despite being passionate and all, I guess they sound a bit too “one dimensional” too often. So maybe it’s the melodies that the band has come up with for the vocals that are not quite cutting it for me. Taking the really dry and dump yet not all too clear production – that old-school fetishists might cream over, but I can’t seem able to appreciate, the result sinks just a bit more, but it’s not the biggest issue I have with the album as I mentioned before.
While on paper a Leather meets Omen sort of hybrid sounds like a good idea, the execution isn’t the best it could be and neither are the songs, despite some really good guitars. Maybe later and with a somewhat cleaner production, I’d feel the impact that these nice sharp guitars are trying to make? Who knows...