Review - Immerse

Immerse
Immerse EP

Ok, for my next review, an EP longer than some of the albums I've reviewed here...don;t quite know how that works.

This is the new EP by progressive metal band Immerse, and it's pretty good. Prog metal is not a subgenre I'm particularly familiar with - basically, apart from Dillinger Escape Plan and Meshuggah, it's foreign territory to me - but I'll try to do Immerse justice. The band's Bandcamp page describes this release as "8 tracks of pure, unbridled aggression, laced with groove and technicality." While I'm not so sure about the "pure, unbridled aggression," (once you've heard thedowngoing, most other bands sound tame by comparison) the groove and technicality are certainly there. It's pretty heavy, and the guitar has a nice, muscular tone, but the band leave room for some more melodic passages - piano interlude Plenitude is a rather lovely break from the relentless beatdown riffs and shouting. Well, I say riffs - riff is more accurate. One of the main flaws in this EP is the band's lack of imagination - most of the tracks here sound like the same song played at slightly different speeds.And, of course, the shouting. Notice I say shouting, rather than screaming. That's because most of the vocals here sound like the work of someone who is half-way through learning to scream properly. And let's not go into the clean vocals - the singing is just barely in tune, and the lyrics are the standard adolescent wank that makes inarticulate screaming a blessing.

For me, the best parts are the tracks (such as Ray(e) and the aforementioned Plenitude) where the band takes their foot off the accelerator and stops trying to be Enter Shikari. When Immerse slow things down, they show some genuine flair, and those slow songs are what saves this album from dullness.

But that's not to say this is a bad or boring EP - some of the heavier tracks genuinely have some power. Mitigate, and opener Obelisk, for example, are both songs that I can easily imagine causing havoc in a moshpit. Really, if the band had left out Gehrun, Fallacy and Integra, this would be a pretty solid five-track EP. As it is, it's worth a listen, and maybe worth buying - but I can't say I'll be waiting with baited breath for their next effort.

Rating: 6/10