Shamelady

The Winter Days Were Nights

Rotten Records

Mathcore is definitely not a genre for everybody. It’s a love/hate kind of thing, but rest assured that any fans of the genre, or even Hardcore/Metalcore, will greatly appreciate this venture into the slower side of the normally hectic sub-genre. Do not buy this album expecting to hear a Dillinger or The End clone. This is much more subdued, comparatively. If you know who either Canvas or Acacia are, you’ll be on the right track to creating a mental image of what these guys are like. If you aren’t familiar with the aforementioned bands, then allow me to give you a run down: Deep, crunchy guitar sound, rhythmic changes galore, drastic tempo changes, hardcore tinges, semi-distorted screaming vox, and topped off with poetic and confusing lyrics. They have a certain mystique about them that is very evident right from looking at the packaging. The track listing has the numbers in roman numerals, with only the title of track five listed. Coincidentally, it happens to be the title track. However, the rest of them are listed on the back of the booklet for reference.

The tracks flow fairly smoothly, and since they all have basically the same sound to them, this release could be taken as a concept album. The lyrics are confusing as hell on first glance, but I’m sure if you sat and picked them apart, you’d find some sort of connection between the songs. I haven’t had the energy to do that. However, I have had the energy to give this album a few good listens and I can say with honesty that if you’re into this kind of thing, you’ll find the energy too.

Stu Patterson