01. All The Popular Girls
02. No One Can Handle The Truth
03. Feel My Heart
At the moment, the Hardcore scene seems to be in an uprising trend again, not leaving enough room for the true Screamo bands. Due to its unusual sound, you will probably end up either loving or hating it. Next to the fact that you will also find a lot of sceptics since Screamo partially evolved out of Emo, which nowadays is a genre you would not even dare to drop at a Metal gig. Therefore, bands who want to stand out from the masses have to offer a good chunk of originality, and convince the Hardcore / Metal crowd to not get lost in the Underground all the time.
The issue with most Screamo bands is that the vocals have the tendency to sound unnatural. On the other hand, Chris has a smooth, yet sharp vocal style which you will fall in love with as a Screamo fan. Here’s Some Slander For You is also loaded with brief experimentations, mostly arrhythmic drumming and breakdowns, but also for example, the clean vocals you can hear on No One Can Handle The Truth, which are actually quite successful. Next to that, the guitar riffing goes beyond the usual power chord bashing. Chris, Darren and Andy (yes, 3 guitarists!) created hypnotizing and repetitive melodyarcs combined with some basic Hardcore elements. The lyrics and overall concept are for once not based on political statements or how-I-want-to-slit-my-wrists messages which automatically gives them a head-on for me.
The main problem with this demo, though, is the degrading of composition quality by track number. All The Popular Girls is a great opener, the highlight of the demo with some interesting structures. It is also probably their most well-rehearsed and thought-out song. The rest of the demo seems to sink into the swamp of mediocrity. No One Can Handle The Truth will still surely make the fans create mosh pits, but Feel My Heart plus the added outro-noise at the end of the demo creates the urge of pressing the skip button. Recording-wise, there is also still a lot of room for improvement, although you can hear they’ve definitely put effort into bringing out a first demo with a fairly good recording quality.
Pattern of Sin’s debut demo does not solely combine the ferocious elements of Hardcore and Metal. Here’s Some Slander For You’s material is not overtly complicated, but the songs aren’t as simplistic as is usually the case with so many faceless Hardcore bands these days. In general, the demo actually has more than enough in the way of solid riffing and layered melodic guitar work. These are rebellious kids who have created, as they describe it themselves, something truly their own. If provided the time to grow as musicians and as a band, they will definitely offer you some mind-blowing music.
6/10 Points – reviewed by Lyra
official Website: http://www.myspace.com/patternofsin