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Widow Sunday: In These Rusted Veins
Widow Sunday In These Rusted Veins new music review

Widow Sunday: In These Rusted Veins

Death/Groove Metal
2.75/5.0

You have to give Massachusetts metal band Widow Sunday credit, and 'A' for effort at the very minimum. On their debut full-length work, In These Rusted Veins, they truly try to bring something different to the table. The ingredients in Widow Sunday's modern metal brew are not particularly novel: hardcore, death metal, groove metal, and thrash metal with a bit of industrial novelty and a slight sense of melody. Actually they remind me, here and there, of Cavalera Conspiracy and their 2008 release Inflikted; that's not bad company to keep. But there's probably 20 bands between here and Germany attempting Widow Sunday's sound at this very moment. C'est la vie.

Yet, Widow Sunday can get more than a little technical as on Forever Sleep and possibly Truth Be Told and Vive Ut Vivas. They hit the catchy groove metal vibe on Symbiont or now and then within Swell the Seas. However, what you mostly hear is a persuasive and excessive amount of blast beats (but some of the best modern metal drumming going) and generally abusive hardcore metal. Widow Sunday tries to trip you with a sublime melodic interlude in Tragedia, but then pummels with the inconsequential swift thrashcore of Hippie Drill. (I actually hoped for more with a great title like that.) Add to this constant and annoying modern angst, anger, and liberal use of the f-word, and In These Rusted Veins becomes quite tedious. I'd rather enjoy my metal, rather then endure the bands angry pyschological vomit, simply because the members believe they are victims of schools, bad parents, or society in general.

Generally, Widow Sunday sounds like a bunch of pit bulls amped up on a cocktail of Red Bull and Jaeger, and then running around a backyard yapping and growling their heads off in chaotic desperation for a bone. But that is probably an apt description of the state of modern heavy (and hardcore) metal: too many bands doing the same thing (and thinking they're not), and hoping to get an audience and the brass ring at the same.

Widow Sunday may be on to something good here on In These Rusted Veins and in the future, but in the current modern metal climate I'm not sure if it's going to make a spit of difference.




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In Short

Widow Sunday may be on to something good here on In These Rusted Veins and in the future, but in the current modern metal climate I'm not sure if it's going to make a spit of difference.

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