DRIVEN BY FEAR

This is the first EP from the technical deathcore band Within The Ruins, and even early on, it is clear that the band had some good musical chops. Like so many bands in this style however, their sound may be technically impressive and refined, but it is also incredibly formulaic and dry. That is the quick summary of my feelings towards the music Within The Ruins has made over the past few years. To this band's credit though, they started out on a much better foot than some of the other bands who have attempted to do the same thing, but I find myself fairly hard- pressed to remember a thing about this music after listening besides it being 'bland, technically impressive metalcore'.

'Driven By Fear' is the first official collection of tracks from the band, and I really find myself torn between either respecting the band for their technical skills, or disliking them for their utterly generic approach. For anyone who has heard a song or album from the often polarizing genre of deathcore, you can add some technical guitar work (sounding somewhat like Between The Buried And Me) and there you have Within The Ruins. As I have thought of this band since I started listening to them, they are quite good at crafting tech death riffs and fusing it in with the less interesting breakdowns or vocal-centric moments. The issue with the band is that the songwriting itself is never actually interesting, and instead its left to a handful of riffs here and there to keep me on my toes. The way this band executes their material is fairly good, although the gravity blasts on the drumkit is a little overdone. What is lacking though is any sort of memorable style to them. Within The Ruins makes no attempt to differentiate themselves from the legions of other technical metal bands that share their aesthetic.

A fairly lukewarm EP, and although I have become recently tolerant of the deathcore breakdowns that this band makes use of, its something I wish that Within The Ruins could do without. Maybe if they focused on their strong technical element, this band could do better than this.

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