Solo Shoots First - This Is The Famous

Self Released 2011

1.Intro 2.This Is The Famous 3.Look At, Look Out 4.Bleeding Starts Receding

5.The Beginning

Breakdowns a plenty greet the listener with the first (instrumental) track which is used as an intro and duely named ‘Intro’. Accompanied by some quite catchy lead guitar work this is a promising start. ‘This Is The Famous’ continues the musical theme, heavy guitars backing some nice intricate and atmospheric lead work accompanied by the ‘genre standard’ anguished and angry screamed vocals. Add in splashes of cleanly sung ‘emotional’ vocal lines and you know the drill. It is something that is being done again and again by a multitude of bands and to be blunt, isn’t the most extreme of genres, no matter how angry the vocalist sounds. ‘Look At, Look Out’ introduces more of the clichéd breakdowns mixed with some atmospheric and tuneful guitar work. SSF do have a canny knack of writing good leads however, and when mixed with the heavier basic guitar lines sound engaging, but again being blunt, it’s probably about the only interesting aspect to the band’s sound, which isn’t necessarily the band's fault. The genre they have chosen has become so over saturated with countless clones that its nigh on impossible to sound original and as mentioned previously, we’re not dealing with the most extreme of genres so there’s not a great deal to keep extreme metal fans engaged with the band when listening to this. Even more frustrating is the fact that all these bands seem to use te same song structures and patterns which only adds to the sense of "been done a million times before".

 ‘Bleeding Starts Receding’ is in breakdown overload and again, genre standard mediocrity. It’s all well played and each band member handles their instrument well but the genre  itself has created a situation where everything sounds the same and is never going to push the boundaries of extremity. Hardcore kids will probably ‘dig it’, get the angriness behind the vocal lines and more than likely curse this review, but extreme metal fans will probably give this a very wide miss. Closer ‘The beginning’ is probably the catchiest of the tracks on offer, the band again showing their song writing skills off very well through the use of well written and catchy lead guitars; dual leads being incorporated which shows a progressive edge to the band, the bass can even be heard ‘noodling’ under the dual leads and is a welcome addition to the band’s sound.

If the band are to truly stand out then maybe they should push their progressive edge some more and lose some of the bog standard breakdown nastiness, because they actually sound quite interesting when they add the progressive element, which on this release, isn’t often enough and the band are obviously more than capable of pushing progression into their music. A fairly genre standard release that does begin to show some real potential when new elements are added to their sound, whether the band take the advice and add a more progressive edge to their sound only time will tell, but to stand out and get noticed, it might be their only option.

5 out of 10