36 Crazyfists

Collisions & Castaways

36 Crazyfists formed in Alaska, and now call Portland, Oregon, home. That nugget of bio-data is effectively useless, though, because it’s not like they’re some kind of folk-metal outfit, blending downtuned riffage with Inuit music, or starting their songs with the roar of snowmobiles, or soundbites from Sarah Palin speeches, or doing anything else uniquely Alaskan. Indeed, there’s almost nothing to help you tell 36 Crazyfists’ songs apart from those of their peers (a problem with screamo/metalcore in general these days, it seems). Vocalist Brock Lindow does this weird throat-rippling thing sometimes on the clean parts, almost like Rush’s Geddy Lee singing into an oscillating fan. But that small dose of personal uniqueness is crushed into insignificance beneath his band’s sub-Mudvayne riffing (“Death Renames The Light”) and Deftones knockoffs (“Anchors,” “Long Roads To Late Nights”). One or two headbang-worthy riffs (“Trenches” has one; so does “The Deserter”) can’t rescue the band’s fifth album from faceless ordinariness.

Ferret http://www.ferretstyle.com

“Trenches”