Within The Wall features four untitled tracks. Each has an average length of eight minutes. The songs follow a similar path of mid-paced doom with harsh death metal vocals interspersed with clean, melodic female vocals. The songs are broken up by quieter, orchestral passages, which give each song a little breathing room, creating just enough space and beauty for the listener to grasp onto. The songs are very well done, but they follow the same format, a predictability that detracts FROM any sense of song-to-song individuality. Fans of Slumber and Swallow The Sun would likely find something to sink their teeth INTO on Within The Wall (if you’re even able to purchase it; I don’t know if that’s possible).

Now, it should be noted that this band is actually called Lycanthia, not Lycathia, and the album title is Within The Walls, not Within The Wall. Unfortunately the band felt that reviewers should do all the legwork when it comes to reviewing their album and supporting their band. The EP came as a CDR with the band’s name and album title—incorrectly!—scrawled across the booklet. No other information was given—no tracklisting, no band biography, no discography, no band member information, no website URL—zilch, nada, nothing. So, tell me, why should a reviewer care to spend his personal time promoting a band that doesn’t seem to care themselves? Why should music fans care about supporting a band that seemingly isn’t interested in creating a product worthy of their hard-earned dollars and time?

When I was younger, I remember spending entire weekends pressing up homemade demo tapes. We spent hours upon hours designing the artwork, recording hundreds of demos to cassette via boomboxes, photocopying (double-sided) all the inserts for each tape, and then sending them out to magazines and fans worldwide (if the band was popular enough). Of course, with today’s technology a band doesn’t need to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours creating a product for their band. But Lycanthia could have spent more than five minutes creating theirs. I realize that the end “musical” product is what we review here, but bands/labels are what we support. And when the bands/labels seemingly don’t care, should anyone else?

written by Ken Wood

Playing time: 32.27