No Peace of Mind - Purify the Hope [EP] (2012, Self-released)

My main beef with hardcore has always been the vocals. When people say about metal that it's just a guy screaming at a microphone, what they actually mean is hardcore. My problem is that the vocals often come across as forced, and many bands - both metal and hardcore - have proved that it's not impossible to make that type of vocals sound good. Most hardcore bands just can't. Then there's the infernal mix of screaming and clean vocals. No Peace of Mind has both.

On Purify the Hope, No Peace of Mind explore the shallow depths of melodic hardcore with a few different tools. At their disposal they have drums, bass, guitar and vocals, and with these tools they create music that has a profound hardcore disposition while still maintaining a rather melodic aspect with post-rock infused riffs and pseudo-melancholic interludes.

As with most hardcore, I felt like the rhythm section was the main strongpoint. Moshing was once (maybe it still is in some scenes) a huge part of hardcore, and this has led to much hardcore having a solid, groovy rhythm section which everything else builds up around and as such forms the groundstructure of the music. No Peace of Mind mostly follows the same principle, and in a song like Fortune they prove that their bassist, drummer and guitarist have a good thing going on between them. For the most part of the EP "Purify the Hope" the instrumentation is sound - It's not so much that they're exploring new land, but together they form a solid mix of melodic post-rock riffs and more traditional chugging passages. In the opening track, Again, the band further emboss their hardcore heritage by incorporating a fair amount of gang shouts. They took some getting used to because I normally wouldn't say they fit into a melodic outfit such as No Peace of Mind, but they actually make it work.

I don't often say this about a band, but I feel as though No Peace of Mind would be better off as an instrumental group. Hardcore never really was my genre, but I can appreciate the band's instrumentation, and I detest the vocals so much that I found it hard to ignore them. Purify the Hope had its moments especially with the opening and closing tracks, Again and The Town. But ultimately these two tracks, which only take up half of the entire EP, aren't enough to keep me interested for prolonged periods of time, and as such I can't award the EP by No Peace of Mind any more than 5/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Again
2. Fortune
3. Spaces
4. The Town

The EP can be streamed here
NO PEACE OF MIND on Facebook

The Blame - Born [Full length] (2011, Raven Records)

The Blame is a Turkish metal band formed in 2006. For a band that has only previously released a demo, I'm going to have to say that I'm severely impressed. "Born" from 2011 is a heavy, groove-ridden album with just a teeny tiny bit of power metal in the mix, and everything just comes together in one big explosion of nicely varied and powerful metal.

Coming out of nowhere it's not often you see a band's first effort be completely breathtaking. While the vocals struggle a little with the higher notes and the music in general lacks a bit of memorability, the album certainly isn't lacklustre and with the amount of variation The Blame put forth "Born" just didn't get boring.
I sensed a lot of Pantera and Machine Head in their songwriting and especially in the drumming, but it isn't overdone or even very noticable. The Blame's lead singer Enver Yilmaz has some pretty cool Phil Anselmo and Joey Belladonna-ish things going on with his vocals, and in general the album could probably best be described as a mix between early Anthrax and Pantera with some tendencies towards more high notes and epic melodies in the vocals, only a few times peppered by raw growley vocals. Obviously I'm over-simplifying things, but in order to just boil it down a bit that is generally the feel I get from listening to The Blame.

Reading about the band online I saw them described as progressive thrash metal once or twice, but in all honesty I can't quite put my finger on in what way The Blame is progressive. They certainly aren't your typical garden-variety thrash band (probably because they aren't trying to be Slayer), but bands like Artillery, Kreator and Megadeth are proof that modern thrash has moved in a more melodic direction with a wholesome and heavy production rather than the gritty, lo-fi production of the early 80's.

The Blame's debut album features both the close-to-mandatory soulful songs and highly melodic but great groove and energetic playing and drumming. There's something, however, about Born that I can't quite put my finger on. Sometimes the vocals are just a bit over the top, and the music lacks hooks. While Born is a great album to listen to while doing other stuff, it's not something that I would sit down and listen to closely, at least not very often. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Another Stolen Life
2. Beyond the Wind
3. Deserted Nation
4. Exile
5. Fading Day
6. Guiding Light
7. Lost in a Rabbit-Hole
8. Made of Stone
9. Sacred Souls
10. The Scarab
11. Valley of Trade

THE BLAME official site
Raven Records official site