Some vocals fit the music that surrounds them like an M&S stockings and suspenders set. Unfortunately, some are aural cheese to their band’s chalk, which makes Mike Minnick, vocalist with Revelation also-rans Curl Up And Die, a pound and a half of Cathedral City. Yes hardcore ‘singers’ often forsake clarity for power, but Minnick’s raspy tones, with a range of choking on a cement mixer to gargling battery acid, sound too disjointed from his band’s lacklustre hardcore stylings, and thus the band lacks any significant impact. The vocals add to the sense that the first three (out of four) songs here sound oddly unrealised, like the band got to a certain point and couldn’t be arsed to finish them properly. They're collections of nice ideas, but badly compiled. Bizarrely, it’s the 14-minute long final track, ‘God Is In His Heaven, All Is Right With The World’, that seems the most focussed, like it’s reached a state of completion. Until Curl Up And Die achieve this completion on every track, they'll forever be nearly-men of a scene tripping over superlative acts.
-
4Mike Diver's Score