I’m not one to really wallow in the shallow depths of the “generation gap” but something happened within the world of metal that I can only chalk up to something I wasn’t meant to be a part of. Metal has always been an angry genre, sometimes the anger raged so hard it became silly but it was always a violent and aggressive form of music.
Then something happened and anger gave way to melodrama. An entire sub-genre of teen angst metal was born and I became even more distanced from a genre that had started losing me once I realized I wasn’t that angry anymore. It’s not that this genre is necessarily bad it just adds an angle to metal that I don’t think belongs.
Enter Mutiny Within and their self-titled debut record on Roadrunner Records. This album is a blueprint to this new style of Melodrama Metal in that it has high paced double bass drums, heavy riffs and then clean vocals that give way to screams when the emotion is supposed to be too intense to just sing about.
Mutiny Within are chock full of cool riffs and fast solos as well as that young band intensity where you can just feel how they want to change the world with their music. The problem is that nothing Mutiny Within do on their debut record translates their obvious passion for the genre. It’s not that the record is bad it’s just hollow, like the difference between throwing a bullet and shooting it.
The Mutiny Within record opens with a song that could be the song they ended with. The songs are all very well written, almost too well. Mutiny Within follows the rules of metal songwriting but the songs have no individuality at all. This album feels like an accessory, something to be used alongside a look, a wardrobe and a particular scene. From the overly clean production to the clean vocals, which almost neuter the record, Mutiny Within can’t seem to get out of their own way long enough to make any kind of real statement. All the great extreme music bands had something unpredictable, something that transcended genre and allowed them to stand out from the crowd. Mutiny Within seem more like they want to be in the crowd, safe and protected from anything outside their little scene.
Don’t get me wrong - Mutiny Within are solid players and if they allow themselves to take some risks they might blossom into something really great. They would need to learn about dynamics and how every song doesn’t have to have that basic chug-chug double bass beat with a soloing guitar over it. The band would also do well to either make the clean voice more interesting or drop it altogether.
That being said there’s a part of me that thinks perhaps Mutiny Within and their new album is derived from a scene I don’t understand and never will. No matter how visceral the band wants their music to be it’s still only a slightly louder version of the teenage lunchroom theme music that rots the airwaves today.
Meanwhile, staking out a much darker territory is Light This City who disbanded in 2008 but not before leaving four brutal, skull-crushing albums in their wake. One of their first offerings was The Hero Cycle, an album of punk tinged high-octane metal songs released in 2003. Now Prosthetic Records is re-releasing The Hero Cycle giving those of you who aren’t familiar with it a chance to hear where Light This City got its start.
The band hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, which gave birth to such thrash metal legends as Death Angel and Metallica. While Light This City has a certain amount of thrash to what they do but they drench that in generous helpings of Grindcore and Punk.
The Hero Cycle sounds like two drunk and pissed off demons beating the shit out of each other with spiked maces while in a bar where everybody worships Lemmy and Motorhead. It’s bizarre to think of but Light This City manages to some create a sense of doom and grind but without slowing down the pace of their music.
Take the song “Picture Start” which comes blowing out of the gate but over the tempo these guitars grind together until the entire thing dissolves into madness. Light This City seem to enjoy taking the darker aspects of the human psyche, feeding them steroids and then turning that darkness into music. This isn’t heady stuff be any stretch of the imagination but it is music that hits you in the gut and won’t let go.
The Hero Cycle is an album that moves from anger to despair to blinding rage and all without losing the head banging, face punching good times. You don’t so much drink a beer to The Hero Cycle as you do smash it in half and guzzle from the broken bottle. You may bleed, it may hurt but in the end a sense of relief will wash over you, well at least you’ll be too drunk to remember how cut up you are. Light This City also manage to rein in their havoc so it doesn’t sound uncontrolled, these are planned bursts of destruction instead of just screaming and yelling just to do it.
If I had to nitpick with anything on The Hero Cycle it might be that it does get repetitive. While the band manages to cohesively blend several styles they aren’t exactly masters of dynamics and that really starts to drag the album down. The other issue, if you want to get technical, is that we’ve heard all this before.
Light This City does a great job of reinventing and hodgepodging their influences but you can still hear them and on a couple of songs it gets boring. Regardless of whatever imperfections The Hero Cycle is still a kick ass metal album that attacks your brain like a tornado of pissed off carnage. Light This City has long since called it a day but listening to The Hero Cycle and their other albums I can tell you they are truly missed.
