FALLENINTOASHES / PENALTY KICK – Split 2

This year the Hungarian label, Hammer Records / Edge Records, has provided the Metal world a new split album by two Metalcore and Hardcore bands from Budapest. Both bands recorded their songs, in a studio called “Underground”, a year ago and this year the full release is officially out. Like the split album, there will be two split insights on each band’s effort in this release.

Fallenintoashes

Formed in 1999 in Budapest, these guys play a mixture of Hardcore and Metalcore with various melodies. After releasing a couple of demos, the band signed with Deadbutcher Records and in 2003 they released an official split with a band called Ambrosia. The main focus by the band in their lyrics are their own personal issues and their views in general. Their main influences come from the late Punk and Hardcore scene along with the American Metalcore scene, bands like Lamb Of God, and a bit from the late “so called” Melodic Death Metal acts like Soilwork.

The band’s share in this production is pretty well constructed and recorded with finesse. The sound production is also very good and assists in creating almost a perfect heavy sound with crushing riffs and explosive drums. All these play an important part in the standards of this sub genre that is driven mainly by power.

Largely, the music is great, energetic and immensely heavy with swarms of Hardcore and Metalcore grooves along with hammering kick downs that can break a wall like in Machine Head influenced tracks like “Still Remember”. The only issue here is that although there’s great music and a massive production, the band is not renewing anything and doesn’t possess a signature sound of their own. Their sound is similar to other bands playing the same style. There is nothing unique in it. Various main riffs can be partly heard from Lamb Of God and late Soilwork songs. The result from this is that they are just another band in a collection of other bands in the same sub-genre with nothing new to report.

Starring in this release are the vocalist Zolee and drummer Zsolt. Zolee has great vocal abilities, using Metalcoric growls with rare parts of clean soft tunes. The song “Destiny” is a good example of that combination. Zsolt presents some explosive drumming punches with a lot of attitude. He skillfully commands the kick downs and helps make this release as hammering as it can be. Other members of the band function well as a unit with a fair performance.

The songs on this release accomplish the job but only some of them deserve some credit. “Destiny”, the best track of this album, breaks out with some crushing riffs and of a course a small kick in the face. Unlike the others it has a melodic vocal chorus. The sad thing is that the end of it is not as perfect. The opener,” Fight With Virus”, is one of the greatest openers, but presents itself like another track of this sub-genre along with “Still Remember” and “Weight Of The Snow”.

Penalty Kick

In terms of Soccer the band’s name doesn’t represent them too well but they still score a couple of goals. This group emerged in Budapest in 2003, playing Hardcore with some late Punk and Metalcore elements. Their influences are Modern Metal and early and late Hardcore especially can be heard in the vocal section.

The band’s production is pretty solid and the sound work is mostly focused, somehow on the drums and the vocals, leaving the guitars a bit behind. There are some parts that the drum’s snare is a bit lost out there and that can cause some small mix ups in the pace changes.

Musically, the guys have fine materiel in the Hardcore and Punky way, it can be noticed when checking the songs’ length. Simple music as it is, the band presents a nice mixture of the speed of Punk along with the heaviness of early Hardcore and Metalcore. The vocal section is divided into clean parts and growl parts. The clean vocals resemble the 80s and 90s Punk scene. The Misfits can be an example here. The growl section is interesting. It’s not like the “clean” growls of late Metalcore, its sounds more like old school Death Metal from the early 90s. The problem with it is that the vocalist, Attila, does not master it well and he is better off with his rushing clean vocals.

The band, as a whole, plays their music with a good ability and creates some good and catchy songs. The opener, “Fire”, is a speedy one and is well performed. The only thing with it is that the last line seems unnecessary. “Stop The Falling” is pretty much a heavy Punk song which in some parts reminds of the 80s-90s Punk scene. “Just Help Me To Bear My Cross!” is another fine one with a good kick down on it.

Summary

This split album presents two good bands that have a wide potential to succeed in the Metal world.

Fallenintoashes are performing great with a well invested recording that deserves praise but they have to do something more of their own, regarding sound and music, aside from well written lyrics.

Penalty Kick can score a lot more goals in the future depending more on the early era of Hardcore and Punk because they are more of a Punk oriented band, the only difference is that they use growls. This is truly not their final say.