UNDERMINDED “Eleven Eleven”
In theory, I should be totally ecstatic about UNDERMINDED. Eleven Eleven, the band’s second full-length strongly identifies with the not-real genre of music of “metallic melodic hardcore.” Too heavy to roam in the land of melodic punk rock, but not quite brutal enough to run with the metallic hardcore bulls, UNDERMINDED manage to plug up the gaps in the respective ranges of style, but rarely stand above comparison.
Much of Eleven Eleven sounds like THRICE’s epic mosher “Paper Tigers,” but with breakdowns that stretch the length of entire three-minute songs. Now, I love “the breakdown” as much as anyone, but patching together a 33 minute quilt of herky-jerky tempo changes and guitar chugs is both ill-advised and uninviting. Few bands can pull off such a pummeling of fluidity, Eleven Eleven is no Damaged. Prototypical of UNDERMINDED’s sound is the fifth track, “Lords & Wolves,” where a kitchen-sink mindset spreads out gang vocals, machine-gun double-bass, SHAI HULUD-like guitar layering, and an impressive sense of melody and control. The follow-up track, “In Complacent Glass Cannons,” shows off the other path that Eleven Eleven travels in, which tilts closely towards the big-riff machinations of EVERY TIME I DIE, but with a sandpaper personality for the lead vocals. Lead singer Nick Martin is simply grating, and while that’s not necessary a bad thing in the context of the band’s wall o’noise songwriting, it’s awfully monotonous in the course of a full-length.
A lot of people enjoy having mutts for pets because they are believed to be more well tempered than pure breeds. UNDERMINDED doesn’t have a problem with temperament, but Eleven Eleven is an questionable blend of strong influences and a songwriting checklist gone mad. Like a little boy who routinely eats cake for breakfast with no one telling him otherwise, it appears that no one has ever said no to UNDERMINDED, and the jarring results make that self-evident. Like the band’s debut, Hail Unamerican!, the talent is there, but a maestro is nowhere in sight.
Uprising
