Reviewed by: Dorothy Pawlowski

Published:  13 October 2011

ep: battle with the sub-conscience

My first thought ten seconds into spinning this disc was “At least I won’t be scrabbling around playing ‘Name That Genre’ reviewing these guys”. Vows of a Massacre is unashamedly (and what’s to be ashamed of, I ask you?) no holds barred metal, with all the usual trimmings: namely, harmonising lead guitars, high-speed double kick, growly / screamy vocals and rhythmic chops. At its best, this is one of my personal favourite genres; at its worst, it’s try-hard, stereotypical tripe. OK, you can breathe again now VOAM fans, this band carry it off rather well, though I wouldn’t be calling them innovators in the field, not yet anyway.

"Battle with the Sub-Conscience" is the six track debut release for freshmen Vows of a Massacre. The EP opens with 'Parasitic Interactivity', a wise choice for the opening track featuring as it does an intriguing fade-in of chops before launching into the main riff, alternating cookie-monster and dry-throat vocal techniques (somewhat reminiscent of Cradle of Filth), the vocal style being characteristic of most of the tracks on this EP. I particularly liked the gang chorus in this track, not typical in this type of music and used only once to good effect.

I had a bit of a spit about the drum production: I swear, it sounds to me like an electronic drum kit (or maybe some drum replacement that didn’t really work out?) and did not do the rest of the music the justice it deserved. I also noticed a general excess of bottom end in the frequency range over the entire recording, although my children assure me it’s de rigueur for the style and I concede that there is a fine line between too much and just-enough bass in a final mix. Call me biased, but I would have liked to hear the guitars more prominently placed, particularly in tracks such as 'Upon the Eyes of Death' where there were some very fine tandem and alternating hard-panned lead breaks.

This issue is less noticeable in tracks such as 'Abandoned Into Reality' and the final offering, 'Insomniac', both of which feature lovely lyrical moments of quiet guitar arpeggios interspersed amongst the noise - well-written tracks with production to match.

Performance-wise, Vows of a Massacre are clearly an able lot of musos: the delivery is tight and imaginative. Musically, the songs are well-constructed within the constraints of the genre and there are enough surprises along the journey to keep this EP out of the “metal cliché” bin in the CD shop. Considering these nice-looking boys (check out the band-snap inside, any Mum would be proud!) seem very young, "Battle with the Sub-Conscience" is a top effort for a first release and this band will definitely be worth keeping an ear on.