Fate - Vultures
Metal Blade - SPV081-105812 - 21 April 2008
By Paddy Walsh
Joining the ranks of innumerable other bands of such stock this year, Fate enter the cluttered fray with their deathcore debut, Vultures. As you might expect, what we're served is the requisite blend of metalcore and death metal, screamed and growled vocals, technical flourishes, pinch harmonics aplenty, and an indistinguishable guitar sound to their peers.
There's no denying that these young Californians can play their instruments, and at times Fate throw up some interesting tech-death moments amidst the prevalent thrashy metalcore. Yet Fate have some way to go in the songwriting department, with each song playing like a series of half-decent ideas flung together in an effort to appear technical, and yet what remains is disjointed and unconvincing. Songs stop and start haphazardly, heading off in all kinds of directions without even a nod to cohesion. Justin Krahn's vocals are of the 'cookie-cutter-death-grunts-melded-with-screams' variety, the banality of which have rendered so many of these bands as clones. Fate unfortunately fall foul of this, with the sterile, clinical production making matters worse as they sound like, well, everyone else. It's telling when the two best tracks on offer are instrumentals, as it's the only time the band step out of their comfort zone and into the realm of reasonably epic, sweep-picked solo territory.
Despite its flaws, buried within this mess lies some great metal, and definite talent to boot. If Fate can become a more focused unit, less intent on pointless showiness and more about actual songs, they just might become contenders in a metal subgenre that has become saturated. As it stands however, Vultures is a bland, generic slice of deathcore that fails to stand out from the crowd.
Official Fate MySpace
Official Metal Blade Website
Metal Blade - SPV081-105812 - 21 April 2008
By Paddy Walsh
Joining the ranks of innumerable other bands of such stock this year, Fate enter the cluttered fray with their deathcore debut, Vultures. As you might expect, what we're served is the requisite blend of metalcore and death metal, screamed and growled vocals, technical flourishes, pinch harmonics aplenty, and an indistinguishable guitar sound to their peers.
There's no denying that these young Californians can play their instruments, and at times Fate throw up some interesting tech-death moments amidst the prevalent thrashy metalcore. Yet Fate have some way to go in the songwriting department, with each song playing like a series of half-decent ideas flung together in an effort to appear technical, and yet what remains is disjointed and unconvincing. Songs stop and start haphazardly, heading off in all kinds of directions without even a nod to cohesion. Justin Krahn's vocals are of the 'cookie-cutter-death-grunts-melded-with-screams' variety, the banality of which have rendered so many of these bands as clones. Fate unfortunately fall foul of this, with the sterile, clinical production making matters worse as they sound like, well, everyone else. It's telling when the two best tracks on offer are instrumentals, as it's the only time the band step out of their comfort zone and into the realm of reasonably epic, sweep-picked solo territory.
Despite its flaws, buried within this mess lies some great metal, and definite talent to boot. If Fate can become a more focused unit, less intent on pointless showiness and more about actual songs, they just might become contenders in a metal subgenre that has become saturated. As it stands however, Vultures is a bland, generic slice of deathcore that fails to stand out from the crowd.
Official Fate MySpace
Official Metal Blade Website
