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Despite making few, if any, aspirations to creating something musically original, Japan’s XecsNoin does manage to win me over on this debut offering. These guys are in some ways deferential to present metalcore trends, but really exist as champions and clinicians of melodic death (with the occasional nod to power metal) and reminders of why so many of us went gaga over it in the first place... y'know, when it came from SWEDEN. Somewhat elongated tunes allow the band to venture to all those places in five or six minutes that those of the pandering ilk can’t in their three-minute breakdown-laden album singles. Dynamic solos and breaks – credited to each respective guitarist in classic metal fashion – are splattered all over this thing like Jackson Pollack hovering on planks above a canvas. I can’t really say that the vocals, be they cleanly sung or shouted, convince entirely as of yet, but that’s a worthy realm for improvement in subsequent outings. It would also benefit the group to decide whether it wants to sing in English or its native Japanese, and if it opts for the former, to hire an outside translator to edit them for the sake of, y’know, basic coherence. Regardless, there’s still a good amount here to elicit profuse horn-throwing and admiration, not to mention anticipation of future works.
| Tracklist |
| 1. The Creator Justifies 04:21 |
| 2. Unscarred 05:04 |
| 3. One Day in November 04:22 |
| 4. Cerberus 06:11 |
| 5. Spirutual Road 05:37 |
| 6. Firewall (Listen to your Inner Voice) 05:07 |
| 7. Asura 04:27 |
| 8. Children of the War 06:01 |
: 41:10
| Buy other XecsNoin albums |
