This review was originally posted to Sputnikmusic on 7 December 2014.
Unleashing My Demons. Where do I start? The Romanian trio of screamer Kira, clean “singer” Ray and multi-instrumentalist Deadly is, frankly, a health hazard. They recently released a new single called “Hope” which has turned a few heads for the wrong reasons (as well as a cover of Asking Alexandria which we shall not speak of again), but it’s their debut EP, Tran[ce]scen[e]dance, which we’ll be suffering through and looking at today.
It’s clear that the main influences on the band’s music are trance and metalcore, and the pure trance tracks are somewhat OK. The EP’s intro starts off harmlessly enough with some nice brooding synths before the mindless metalcore chugging (with a frankly awful guitar tone) kicks in and ruins it. Every track follows this pattern of promising intros before things just become a shamble. Mistimed instruments with a pure lack of synchronization (out of time drums, random synth lines, out of place screams, you name it) and it feels like Deadly is trying to put far too much into the music but lacks the musical know-how and talent to pull it off. If he instead stripped back the sound and went for more straightforward songwriting structures (as well as a much better guitar tone), he could make a passable effort because the more simple musical elements aren’t all that bad. But that’s before we get onto the vocals.
Oh good lord, the vocals. Who on earth thought this was a good idea? Kira’s screams are poor but barely passable (they wouldn’t be out of place in a grindcore band with a little practice), and with a little practice he could become a competent screamer if he just wrote lyrics that were short enough for the line they were meant to be used in, and stayed in time with the music (which I confess is rather difficult to do given the scattered nature of the music itself on this EP). If Deadly could fix his musical approach and Kira fixed his screaming, UMD could become a barely competent trancecore band. But, then we get Ray. The clean singer – if you can call him a singer. To get a good impression of what his vocal performance is like, make sure you look up the worst X-Factor/Idol auditionees of all time because he’s right up there with them. The clean vocals are flat, off-key, unstable and scattered... basically everything that you shouldn’t be in a singer. The kid needs some serious vocal coaching to get anywhere near decent.
Overall, though, this EP is something that should just be avoided. Aside from the instrumental Intro/Outro tracks and occasional pure trance moments (look at the middle of World of Corruption for an example), the EP is simply abysmal. Some tracks such as Together Forever end completely at random and other tracks just randomly segue or go off on tangents with no reason or warning. The band has an extremely long way to go if they can put the effort in because otherwise, they’ll be nothing more than a laughing stock.