Label: http://www.cruzdelsurmusic.com
Release Date: October 2004
Home Page: http://www.lifend.cjb.net
LIFEND's label describes their debut release, Inner Scars, as "avantgardish death metal". However, what record label Cruz Del Sur Music defines as avant-garde, I find chaotic. This chaos is occasionally enjoyable, but most frequently it simply creates the urge to listen to something else.
LIFEND leverages three vocalists; two men who handle brutal and clean vocals, and a woman who performs clean vocals. The music is incredibly varied, mixing Melodic Death Metal, acoustic passages, horns, synthesizers, growl vocals, clean male vocals and clean female vocals, often all at the same time. While I enjoy complex, challenging music, at a certain point there's a limit to what can be crammed into a song before that song loses any recognizable framework. As many young, progressive acts often do, LIFEND seems overly impressed by their own imagination. Instead of blending a few good ideas into a given song, theyve tried to blend one or two good ideas with six or seven mediocre ideas, creating something that is, more often than not, less than enjoyable.
Don't get me wrong, there are some decent moments on LIFEND's debut CD, Inner Scars. I especially enjoy the way they make use of horns, keys and acoustic guitars to create intriguing atmospheres. I also enjoy Sarah's emotional clean vocals, as well as Robertos exceptionally adept bass play. LIFEND even manages to squeeze in the occasional cool riff among all the madness. Unfortunately, the guitar play and drumming on Inner Scars, are wholly uninteresting, and the death vocals are just plain bad.
It seems to be somewhat of a moot point, listing the stand out tracks on Inner Scars, since the songs that have passages that I enjoy, also have passages that simply don't work.
LIFEND is one of those bands I'll be curious to revisit in four or five years, when they have a few discs under their belt. Hopefully they will gain the wisdom to recognize that it's good songs that win fans, not layers upon layers of unnecessary instrumentation. If you're someone who likes their Metal a bit off the beaten path, and doesn't hold the delivery of death vocals to any sort of standard, you might want to take LIFEND out for a spin. However, if youre among those who run screaming when they hear the term "avant-garde" used to describe a Metal band, than run screaming.
Rating: 5/10
Reviewer: General Zod
