Canada's Last Call Chernobyl are on somewhat of a roll. In 2009 they were handpicked to perform on the Vans Warped Tour, and here a year later their debut CD Drowning Beneath the Sound of Change is being released on up-and-coming East Coast metal label Diminished Fifth Records. While this new release will be for some barely longer than your standard EP (it clocks in at just over 31 minutes), Drowning Beneath the Sound of Change shows plenty of promise for this 4 piece metal act. Taking their cue from hardcore, death metal, jazz, and progressive metal, Last Call Chernobyl fit alongside such heavyweights of the scene like Misery Signals, Beneath the Massacre, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Between the Buried and Me, though let's be honest, they're not quite there yet. Plenty of crushing riffs and breakdowns here, plus complex, proggy/jazzy passages for all the technical geeks, which makes for exciting, if not somewhat familiar listening. Tracks like "This City", "Beneath the Veil", and "Eris" are quite heavy and complex, showing that the band certainly know how to play their instruments and deliver some wild mathy/proggy extreme metal, but the main difference between this and what the other bands I mentioned is that these tunes, no matter how impressive they might be musically, aren't overly memorable. Kyle Mahar can churn out some impressive growls and the occasional clean vocal passage, but he's just not delivering anything that convinces the listener to come back again for repeated spins. Many of the instrumental bits are impressive on their own, but they don't connect together well enough to make them memorable. It's only on "Burden of Dreams" that everything really starts to click, as this near 6-minute piece shows the band in full progressive death metal mode, with HUGE & complex riffery from Matt Maulton mashing together with slow, doomy passages while Mahar delivers a wide assortment of chaotic vocal styles. I'll pay to hear more of this type of killer cut anyday.
Drowning Beneath the Sound of Change certainly has plenty of positives, and is well worth looking into for those who love technical extreme metal. The band has some kinks to work out, but you'll instantly see the talent that they have, which screams of much better things to come. A solid if not erratic debut, which should lead to a promising future.
Track Listing
1. This City
2. For Fear of Falling
3. Beneath the Veil
4. Drowning Beneath the Sound of Change
5. Eris
6. Level 7
7. Burden of Dreams
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