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[5/10] According to their bio, Deadwalk’s independently released four track EP Powerhouse took the Canadian music scene by storm upon its release in 2007, and helped elevate the band’s profile enough to earn support slots to acts such as Emmure, Bring Me The Horizon, Elysia and Bury Your Dead.
On the surface, it would appear that the band has some talent within their ranks, and that their eventual signing up to Year Of The Sun Records for their full-length debut Scandalous is based on their future potential on a worldwide scale. But after several runs through Scandalous, I have to be honest and say that I’m not really sure what the big deal is with this Montreal-based outfit.
Generally, hardcore isn’t a genre known for its progressive nature, or even for a great deal of diversity. More often than not, hardcore bands stick to the tried and true formula, and are judged purely on whether they can pull it off or not. In the case of Deadwalk, their debut effort simply don’t have what it takes to generate any real sense of urgency to see the band live, or even put the album on again once you’ve heard it a couple of times.A lot of the album’s problems lay squarely with the band’s rather simplistic style of song writing and the one dimensional bark that vocalist Greg Kepka (ex-Too Pure To Die) adopts throughout the album.
The opening track “Prom Night” is a prime example of Deadwalk’s back to basics approach to hardcore. Musically, the band (comprising of guitarists Jonathan Donnelly and Ben Latour, bassist Gates Pompizzi and drummer Peter Greyling) rely too heavily on one riff structure, and simply hammer it to death throughout the songs duration. Sure, there are some tempo changes here and there, but it’s all a little too simple and repetitive, which inevitably gets a little boring after a while. On the vocal front, Kepka sticks primarily to his one approach throughout the song, which is nothing more than a raspy clean sounding growl.
In terms of production, Mat Laperle (Arise Horror vocalist/guitarist, and who produced, recorded, mixed and mastered the album) has given the band a full and thick sound, and is one of the more positive aspects of the album. As for the album’s stronger songs, it’s a tough pick given that the songs tend to blur into one another as the album progresses. But at a push, “High Tension,” “Frailty” (which features a guest appearance by Stick To Your Guns front man Jesse Barnett), “Death Sentence” and “8 mm” are definitely the pick from the ten cuts on offer.
Deadwalk are far from terrible, but they’re certainly not the new Hatebreed either. Instead, Despite having the heaviness and aggression required, Scandalous is just too predictable and simplistic to really have any sort of long lasting impact on the listener. This can really only be recommended to those who like their hardcore brutal, basic and without any real challenge in the thinking stakes.
www.myspace.com/deadwalkhc
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