Issues: Issues

Artist: Issues
Title: Issues (S/T)
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 18th February 2014
Reviewed By: Ben Chapman

Issues' self-titled album is a brash effort to bridge energetic metal with more chart friendly elements with its serious and well-recorded series of tunes. Apart from the faultless production of the album, musically there's not much to offer lastingly unless taken up by fans of such mixed styles as this screaming, grinding, top-forty metalcore sing along.

When Sad Ghost sets off the album, the heavy crunch of guitars accented by scratched vinyl makes for a menacing start. Other sections of the track fail to be as interestingly warped or heavy, and while a sound technical ability is displayed by the sheer speed of the drumming and guitar strum, the way the distortion gives over to floaty synth and tender pop vocal lines (which at times allows an effective contrast with the more rigid shouting) is more often detrimental. The vocalists are skilled, but just aren't a pleasure to hear. With Sad Ghosts being one of the stronger tracks, Issues certainly raise a few, but not all listeners will have a problem with things heading generally downhill.

The Langdon House rescues the album ever so slightly with its Daftpunk-sounding synth intro followed by some distorted guitar chords with an impressive percussive quality and an angry, precisely articulated rhythm. The disarming vocal melody could have been sung by Justin Timberlake, though the track sounds a lot like the previous ones, there's something more subtly tolerable in its approach. The R&B influences, unfortunately not of the Ray Charles kind, are put to better use here than in other moments on Issues.

Mad at Myself mixes some more heavy shredding with dodgy club-worthy vocal lines, which though tunefully sung, makes the musically busy track inadvertently underwhelming. Though the attempt to stir together genres is prevalent throughout Issues, this musical formula of adding a few fast and heavy riffs onto some overly tuneful singing seems to the ears an unnecessary mashing. The pristine vocals, precise mixing and full sound don’t prevent the diluting effect of stirring up these styles, and we're left with an album that's like drinking weak squash.

Even though the album relies on mixing genres, the parts that are brought together aren't really ground- breaking in themselves. It's like Issues shoves together clichéd features of each genre: some boyband run of quickly stringed syllables here, some shreds of thrashy palm-muting there: so the tunes, though well produced, performed, and technically hard to fault, unfortunately fail to create an actual blend or product of the two genres. The album sounds a bit lacking in drive and relevance because of it. The 'cut and paste' feel to the songs manages to make them all sound a bit similar.

It’s sad that the best bit of the album, Old Dena, is only the short but bodypopping interlude. The peak of a record probably shouldn't be a minute and a half break between the songs; it reveals to the listener they'd actually like a break between the songs, rather than actually listen to the album. But certainly this funky drum beat and sliding bassline proves that there are at least some bits of Issues that are worth paying some attention to.

There’ll be fans of metalcore and R&B that will certainly see this record as an important advance from Issues, even as it's music may cater to a strange, oddly specific, yet also generic, and most certainly acquired, taste.