SwornEnemy

14.04.2006

Forgotten

Scared of the Unknown

The Beginning of the End

Save your Breath

Absorb the Lies

All I Have

We hate

No second Chances

After the Fall

Here Today

Weight of the World

Sal LoCoco - vocals

Paul Antignani - drums

Lorenzo Antonucci - guitar

Jamin Hunt - bass

SWORN ENEMY: "The Beginning of the End" sworn enemy

European release date: may 2nd 2006

Produced by Tim Lambesis (frontman for As I Lay Dying), and mixed by Zeus (Hatebreed, Madball, God Forbid, The Red Chord, Shadows Fall)

preview - review by Matthew "Newbreed99" Haumschild___

Not a hardcore album, but it still has some elements of it. Sworn Enemy is more of a metal band now.It seems that the band has learned the art of adding more than 3 guitar tracks to their overall mix.

I saw this band a few years ago when they opened up with Fear Factory with Walls Of Jericho. My first impression of this band was that they’re another hardcore group from New York City. Lots of yelling and screaming with hard-as-can- get guitars and fast monotonous drumming. Just by their attitudes, anyone could tell they were from New York, that and the accents gave them away. But, this CD was different from the last one I had purchased when they were on Elektra records. “As Real As It Gets” was a true to form hardcore album, “The Beginning Of The End” is not a hardcore album, but it still has some elements of it. What I am trying to say is that Sworn Enemy is more of a metal band now than a hardcore band. Some may ask, “What is the difference?” Metal bands tend to be more dynamic with their music as opposed to just straight full on aggression with angry-one dimensional vocals. Sworn Enemy have appeared to broaden their horizons.

At first glance, the band sounds different. It seems that the band has learned the art of adding more than 3 guitar tracks to their overall mix. And the kick drum is triggered to sound more like a metal band than a hardcore band on the first track called, “Forgotten.” The funny part is, the singer reminds me of Billy Graziadei from Biohazard and that got my attention because not a whole lot of people can sound like him. To be honest, I think the song might be a little too intense to start off an album with or a concert for that matter. Although, I never thought I’d ever write that, but it’s true. The whole song started out hardcore until the first post-chorus and the song went into a different direction and the guitar player was playing some harmony parts, which sounded really cool. Towards the end of the song, the guitar player just let loose and played this awesome solo which demonstrated to me the flexibility of this band.

Another instance where the band has made a successful crossover is in the next track, “Scared Of The Unknown.” The guitar player, during the chorus, plays a galloping guitar riff along with the drummer, which is very uncommon for hardcore band. However, there are other parts of the song which are very hardcore, like the post chorus at the end, the guitar player has a lot of rests and the drummer basically hits his 18” crash cymbal and lets the rest of the notes hang in the balance. The lyrics to this song aren’t actually too bad. Most people could understand them and possibly relate to them.

One of the songs I didn’t really care for was the song, “We Hate.” The song talks about hating someone’s music or the way they sound or hating someone in general. I am not sure if they are trying to be funny or proving a point but if they are serious, I can’t take this band too seriously. I hate light music, everyone knows it but I am not going to write a song about how I wish the genre was never formed. Just my opinion. The song is a little too hateful for me, it’s aggressive. It’s heavy as hell but very hard-corish to me and I think the band took a step backwards in this song.

Now, the next song, “No Second Chances” is even more aggressive and sounds more like a hard-core song with guitar harmonic effects. I would say this song is great if the listener is very pissed off other than that, I think the song doesn’t add anything to society.

The Quality:

I thought the mix was a little dry. The mix was very guitar driven with emphasis on the 18” crash that is played as often or more than the hi-hat for the rhythm part of the drumming. To me, this is too dominating. The drummer is good, don’t get me wrong but he hardly ever uses toms at all for fills. The bass is non-existent in the mix unless everyone stops playing. The singing is mic’d and recorded with perfection, but is terribly one dimensional. The voice sounds good but…without range there isn’t much I can say. The quality of the recording is fine, jus the bass needs to have some more presence.

Overall I thought it was better than there last CD and the band would be great to see live but other than that, it wasn’t bad by any means but it wasn’t spectacular either.

rating: 6/10

Matthew Haumschild

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