The South has been quite a hotbed for extreme Metal in recent years with the likes of metal titans Lamb of God, as well as Between the Buried and Me, Through The Eyes Of The Dead, With Blood Comes Cleansing and others hailing from different parts of the south, and bringing in lots of media attention. More recently though, Knoxville, TN has slowly started to play a larger role in it's own right, with upstart bands like A Different Breed Of Killer making a name for themselves, and Whitechapel cracking the billboard charts and really putting Knoxville on the Metal map. Now Knoxville's modern Metal mainstays Straight Line Stitch are about to drop their own brand of sonic devastation on the metal community.
Their debut full length, 'When Skies Wash Ashore', sees the band continuing to fine tune the sound they established with their self released 2007 ep 'The Word Made Flesh'. There is more than enough brutality and aggression in this album to get mosh pits moving, there's also gobs of melody incorporated into the band's sound which does well to set them apart from their more extreme local peers.
With the new album Straight Line Stitch doesn't waste any time charging out of the gate with the track, "Never See The Day" (which is apparently not going to be the actual album opener, but it is for this advance), which comes in with a seriously wicked Machine Head-eqsue groove and the acidic vocal rasp from vocalist Alexis Brown. Of course, the screams in the first verse lead right into an extremely catchy pop-structured melodic chorus with a perfect mix of aggro and clean vocals, exhibiting Aleixs' diverse vocal range. From there the band breaks into a full melodic segue that leads into a driving rhythm with Alexis showcasing her ability to belt out an even more infectious soaring melodic chorus. The band, however, doesn't waste any time following that up with another savage dose of brutality to bring the song to a crushing close.
One of the more brutal tracks on the album is "Taste Of Ashes", which features a guest vocal appearance from none other than Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed, Kingdom Of Sorrow). The overall feel of the track is very much in the vein of Hatebreed, with the main riff being a simple but effective crushing staccato rhythm that propels a vocal trade off between Alexis and Jamey. Having a bit of a Hatebreed influence might possibly be due to the band having Jamey in mind when they wrote the song, but SLS manage to maintain their own sound with the huge melodic chorus that's thrown into the mix.
In direct contrast to that, "Seneca Tragedy" is definitely a stand out track on the album, with the band going for a more hard rock feel with a rather funky guitar intro. The song doesn't have any screaming, but Alexis continues to kill it with her soulful clean vocal delivery. It's also Just another way for the rest of SLS to branch out a bit more, to show that they're not just all metal all the time. And as is usual with any metal band that branch out into the rock arena, they do it better than any of the corporate crap bands that radio keeps trying to shove down our throats.
The improvement in the band's sound and style are most noticeable in "Adult Cinema", "The Word Made Flesh", and "Black Veil", 3 tracks that have made their way from the ep to the full length. While not too much was changed, there are very noticeable nuances that have either been cleaned up or simply streamlined to add more punch to the material. Alexis' vocal rasps have been cleaned up and the layered guttural growls have pretty much been phased out, but don't think for one second that it takes away from the band's aggressive edge. The cleaned up sound only serves to make the heavy parts come in even heavier in the wake of each melodic break. Long time fans of the band may prefer the more raw sound of the original versions, but the polished sound of these re-recorded tracks simply serves to ensure that each track is sonically consistent, and that everything on the album flows seamlessly.
And of course, a Metal album just wouldn't be complete without a full on acoustic ballad. The closing track, "Yesterday's Gone" (which is apparently a working title that is completely different from the actual release), is just that. A perfectly executed ballad that shows yet another completely different side of the band.
