98 The Hard Way: EPs, Day 8

Cavity / Cable / Jesuit / Overcast: In These Black Days Vol. 4 (Hydrahead)

The tribute record is always a tricky proposition for me, especially with a band I used to revere as much as I did Black Sabbath. It's a tricky proposition because while the songs, even the second stringers that the In These Black Days mostly stuck to over its six volumes, are good enough that any version will at least capture its base level magic in some way, but at the same time I'm always looking for a cover version to do something beyond that. The reverence that Sabbath inspires translates to a lot of cover versions that play it so close to the original that it becomes an exercise in pointlessness - see about 90% of either Nativity in Black compilation - and you'd think that in the realm of modern Sludge Metal this reverence would only be multiplied, not subverted at all.

You'd be about half wrong, it seems. All four of the bands here at least leave some sort of a stamp on their versions of the songs (none of which are Sabbath first round draft picks, which works in this series' favor) and even it's as faint as the greatly increased bass presence on Cable's take on "Planet Caravan" it at least shows that the bands are thinking beyond just playing the originals as they heard when they were young. Jesuit especially gives their song enough of a makeover to call their own with their buzzing, noisy take on "Hole in the Sky", and while Cavity don't do quite that much with "Into the Void" it still winds up feeling like thier take on the song as opposed to a recreation of the Sabbath version. Overcast's take on "National Acrobat" at once does the most with the source material - translating it to first generation metalcore rather successfully - while having the most firm roots in the original since outside of the harsher vocals and guitar tone the first half is played pretty straight. On the whole though, each band at least does something to the material, and that's all I can ask for this type of release to do. [7.8/10]

Engine Down: Engine Down (Lovitt)

Let's talk about production, because that is the thing that most bothers me about this release. There are ways to record songs with the vocals as a background layer, hell there are ways to make the whole 'vocals fighting to be heard' thing work to a song's advantage. Then there's the sort of production we're faced with here where you've got a couple of nice, moody, bass driven post-hardcore tunes that then have some vocals that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a well that happened to be in the middle of the studio placed in the lowest part of the mix. Like I said, there are ways to go about this that would work, I mean Jeromes Dream based a whole career off of it didn't they? But some combination of the production and the delivery of the vocals themselves make it seem like this was just a mistake, that the vocals were supposed to be at the forefront and no one got the memo. It's a shame because as I said, these are nice songs on the whole, almost like an alternate universe version of Three Mile Pilot who took influence from the Gravity Records scene circa 1993 instead of making inroads towards art pop from an early age. I know that they fixed this mixing issue fairly quickly - their song on the split with Twelve Hour Turn from later in the year is much more competently produced - but on this particular 7" it takes the whole enterprise down a couple of notches. [6.9/10]

Download link courtesy of What If Forensics Finds the Answers

I Have Dreams: Three Days 'til Christmas (Self-Released)

This isn't so much a musical document as it is an epitaph. It's five friends briefly forming a band to work through the grief of losing a mutual friend, only ever recording this brief, 16 minute demo and releasing it at their shows. The band was only together for 6 months, total. Yet her ewe are 13 years later and this is one of the most widely renowned screamo EPs of all time. I don't think that the people who made up I Have Dreams would have expected that this would happen. I doubt that they'd even considered that it would be heard beyond their local scene. So why is it held up so highly nowadays? Is it just that good? Well, yes and no. As far as I'm concerned there's one truly great song - "Countless Rooftops" for the record - and four that are held up by the excessive amounts of passion that comes with the band's raison d'etre. Lyrically it's hard to fault it, anyone who's ever lost a close friend has felt exactly the same things that are being expressed here. Sonically though there are some issues. I'll preface this by saying that for a demo this is incredibly well recorded, so good on 'em for taking this much care in the recording. However, the songs are a bit guilty of trying to do too much. There's always a moment in any given song that just doesn't make sense in context, almost like they had this stray riff lying around and felt the need to include it irregardless of whether it was really necessary. It's a small issue all told, but it always irks me when I play this one. But like I said, the passion always wins out, hence why I'm taking the time to talk about this without being forced to. It's a very good demo, just a shame that by the band's very nature it was all we were gonna get since I'd wager that given time to develop they could have become truly incredible.This isn't so much a musical document as it is an epitaph. It's five friends briefly forming a band to work through the grief of losing a mutual friend, only ever recording this brief, 16 minute demo and releasing it at their shows. The band was only together for 6 months, total. Yet her ewe are 13 years later and this is one of the most widely renowned screamo EPs of all time. I don't think that the people who made up I Have Dreams would have expected that this would happen. I doubt that they'd even considered that it would be heard beyond their local scene. So why is it held up so highly nowadays? Is it just that good? Well, yes and no. As far as I'm concerned there's one truly great song - "Countless Rooftops" for the record - and four that are held up by the excessive amounts of passion that comes with the band's raison d'etre. Lyrically it's hard to fault it, anyone who's ever lost a close friend has felt exactly the same things that are being expressed here. Sonically though there are some issues. I'll preface this by saying that for a demo this is incredibly well recorded, so good on 'em for taking this much care in the recording. However, the songs are a bit guilty of trying to do too much. There's always a moment in any given song that just doesn't make sense in context, almost like they had this stray riff lying around and felt the need to include it irregardless of whether it was really necessary. It's a small issue all told, but it always irks me when I play this one. But like I said, the passion always wins out, hence why I'm taking the time to talk about this without being forced to. It's a very good demo, just a shame that by the band's very nature it was all we were gonna get since I'd wager that given time to develop they could have become truly incredible. [8.1/10]

Download link and image courtesy of Tallahassee Music Scene