2005-10-14
Aiden are a relatively young band hailing from Seattle, creating what they describe as Horror Rock, but I would define as Punk rock with Emo and Scream core bits, sometimes reminiscent of My Chemical Romance, with their image also quite similar.
This is the band's debut album, with an EP in their past which several of the songs in the album originate from, but all-in-all they manage to inject the album with a fresh, aggressive melody and some memorable hooks.
The music uses good solid riffs and a combination of clean melodic vocals with Screamed ones, something that works great in some tracks, and less then great in a few others, it certainly has a good commercial appeal, with their brand of horror-tinged lyrics winking with promise to today angst filled youth, I, on the other hand, have long passed my youth, and was never too angst filled to begin with, so I didn’t relate to the band's goth-rock antics.
Musically, on the other hand, I found plenty to enjoy, from the MTV friendly Knife Blood Nightmare to the equally melodic and catchy Die Romantic, but its in numbers such as The Last Sunrise that the band's tight musicianship shines through, with their combination of melodic and screamed vocals giving an aggression tinged melodic rock feel.
The vocals do their best at Breathless, also one of the better tracks on the album, which also benefits from a clear and solid sound that brings forth the good guitar work and thick sounding drums.
Week points are some of the clean vocal passages, the sometimes whiny sounding lyrics, and the lack of a bit more diversity, but over whole it’s a solid release, with good commercial appeal and solid musicianship, the band should grow out of its more immature moments, and they're heading for greatness.
Alon Miasnikov
