Unearth

"The Oncoming Storm"

Metal Blade Records

With soaring guitar harmonies layered over fast, bludgeoning drumbeats, and marked with bestial breakdowns, Unearth has always been one of my favorite bands. Very few bands have mastered the balance of hardcore with metal like Unearth, and to watch them deliver these complicated melodies and rhythms live is a testament to the musical artistry that sets them apart from bands on the forefront of both hardcore and metal scenes. Unearth isn't this good because of studio magic or special effects, they're this good because they're sickeningly talented. However, six years since their inception, and with a label change from Eulogy Records, to Metal Blade Records, Unearth certainly isn't the same band they were when they released their debut album "Above The Fall Of Man".

When I shelled out ten dollars to buy my copy of "The Oncoming Storm" at Hellfest, I wasn't aware that I was purchasing a metal album. Everything on this album is much slower and less energetic than any of their other work, and in place of grinding guitar harmonies, there are slamming guitar parts in the tradition of Killswitch Engage, with an occasional metal solo. In fact, most of this album bears strong musical resemblance to "Alive Or Just Breathing" by Killswitch Engage. Ken Susi does much more melodic back up singing to Trevor Phipps's yelling than he's ever done, and the lyrics are definitely not up to par with what I've come to expect. In the first minute and sixteen seconds of "The Great Dividers", Trevor had already repeated the word "nations" five times, and bear in mind that most of that wasn't until about halfway through that small stretch of time. This sort of lyrical repetition is disappointing from the man who wrote such amazing lyrics as ".Growing wings of sorrow have brought you to the winds of plague Increscent boundaries fade the way."

When I first heard Unearth, I was half ashamed of my musical abilities, and half inspired to practice harder and get better at it. However, most of the guitar work that was so inspiring to me is missing from this album. No more rapid-fire picking, no more classical guitar harmonies played in

hardcore fashion, just, well, metal. I used to describe them as a band that both fans of classical music, metal, and hardcore could all enjoy to some extent, but this just isn't really true anymore. Even "Endless", an older song, has been re-recorded to include they're new mostly-metal sound, resulting in a slower and less aggressive product. It seems like guitarists Buz McGrath and Ken Susi have stepped outside their personal styles to create something that's already been done, a lot. I remember trying to play

along to their old stuff and feeling like my fingers were going to fall off, now a lot of the guitar parts are pretty simple. Through all of this, Mike Justian's drumming has stayed consistently amazing. His timing is perfect and he's spared no energy on the album, and continues to create a sonic frenzy from his drum set. Unearth is comprised of one of the most talented groups of musicians I've ever heard, and I know that Unearth is more than capable of producing something much better than this, and I'm disappointed that they haven't.

After all my whining and complaining about how Unearth isn't the same as they used to be, and how they're a lot more metal now than hardcore, you do have to realize that this is inevitably a metal album. Not only that, but it's a pretty good metal album. In fact I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Unearth went on to revolutionize the metal scene as we know it today, after all, it's way overdue. But even as a metal band, I still think they should have stuck a little more to the sound they had before this album, it made them a lot more original, a lot more unique, and a lot more at home in the speakers of both hardcore and metal fans. This isn't a bad CD, but it is a bad Unearth CD, and I really hope their next release is better, and returns a little more to the sound that is unmistakably Unearth.

- Wyatt Shibley

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