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Artist: DOWNSTROKE
Album: Discipline Strenght
Year: 2004
Normally when a band contacts me with a request to be
placed on the site, I can almost judge that they would
be fitting on it by the name. So, when Lars of
Downstroke contacted me I hardly believed that they
would fit on this page. But, I checked it out and they
kinda surprised me with their modern industrialized
metal style, a bit of the same style as Estonian band
Finish Me Off. Discipline Strength is the first work of
this German four pieced band: a five track demo released
in 2005.
The demo starts with 'Confronting The Mind'. This song
brings you almost three minutes of agressive music. The
guitar riffs are pretty simple, but who needs complex
stuff to make a good song? Love the powerful drums on
this record! This song can fit pretty much on the
selftitled album of Dagoba. Next up is "Rejection". An
industrial sounding intro, followed by some kind of
hardcore song. And because I don't really like hardcore,
I decided to skip this song (again) after about one
minute. Love the intro though! "Crushing The Chains"
shows us the now-metal influences this band has got.
Some industrial mix of bands like Disturbed and Coal
Chamber with a little touch of Meshuggah. And although I
don't like any of these bands (in fact, I hate them), I
somehow like this song. It has a cool intermezzo after
about 3'30". Well done guys! Time for "H.A.T.E.". First
thing that kept me wondering is the fact that there are
"." between the letters. Does it mean something? The
lyric page of this song wasn't updated, so I still
havent found the answer. Anyway, about the music.. the
first 13 seconds sound almost exactly as Fear Factory's
"Martyr". This returnes in the song a few times, while
the other couplets are not that far away from that
particular Fear Factory song as well. Not a bad song,
but rip off? I would say yes. The final song of this
demo is called "Disconnected". This is the shortest song
of the demo, and also one of the fastest. If you ask me
this is the best song of the demo. Why? Because of the
fact that they managed very different elements into one
cool package. Fear Factory mixed with Meshuggah and a
little Hatebreed. My compliments! Well, I can't say that
they haven't shown they got potential and variation with
their music, but their first demo didnt really convince
me. This demo is definitely not bad at all, but for me
it is nothing more than an easy listening demo between
some Fear Factory. Call it industrial sounding death/trash
metal, with some hardcore vocals... influenced by bands
like Meshuggah, Dagoba, Hatebreed and maybe a little
Fear Factory and Machine Head. This band could be a
positive surprise for fans of those bands though.
Vote: 67 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
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01. Confronting The Mind
02. Rejection
03. Crushing the chains
04. H.A.T.E
05. Disconnected |
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