Arson - Brokeness Brings Forth Unknown Beauty - [Ruuf Records]

2006-04-22

Germany's Arson create what can be described as a combination of metalcore, nu metal, and emo, their music infuses hard-driving metal riffs with hardcore aggression and screamed vocals, and then lays down emo-like melodic vocals and nu-metal programming and clean guitars, it may sound confused, but the result is pretty good.

Starting off with the short intro – “Broken”, the band spews forth 13 tracks, all quite direct and not overtly sophisticated, the main focus is on interesting hooks and catchy vocal melodies, most songs will stick in your mind from the first listening session, they do use some breaks and bridges, but this isn’t highly technical, the music is quite straight forward.

“The Path” starts off with one of the best riffs on the album, the only thing that disturbed me, is the sound, its quite clear, and the guitars have the right crunch, but the drums came in rather too crisp, the high notes coming off as a bit shrill, its not enough to make this un enjoyable, but it still bothered me from time to time, the track, though, works perfectly, a fine combination of aggressive verses an a soft, melodic verse.

“Adventisement” shows off the bands nu metal leanings, interesting production sounds and interesting guitar parts, the vocals, preformed by all members of the band, are the main thing that elevates the melodic side of the album.

One thing about the band is that they wear their beliefs upon their sleeves, clearly a Christian band, the songs are divided into texts from the bible, with one track, number 11, even named in Hebrew, its English translation is "and they shall not fly".

Alon Miasnikov