A CALCULATED USE OF SOUND

Protest The Hero formed in 1999, and at the time, the members were just twelve years old. The line up consisted of Rody Walker on vocals, Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar on guitar (both guitarists perform both lead guitar and rhythm guitar duties) Arif Mirabdolbaghi on bass guitar and Moe Carlson on drums. They originally called themselves Happy Go Lucky, but changed their name before they released their first EP, A Calculated Use of Sound and then signed onto the record lable Underground Operations.

This particular EP, is at it's core, hardcore punk and metalcore, easily more technical than your average hardcore punk band, and in some cases more technical than average metalcore too. Heavy metal enough to fit into metalcore, but also enough hardcore punk in there to make it both genres in one album really.

It's very apparent straight away, as soon as Red Stars Over the Battle of the Cowshed kicks in, that this is a very talented band, when you consider all the members are not even 18 years old yet. Red Stars Over the Battle of the Cowshed shows a definite Post Hardcore influence (which continues through the album), with it's extra complexity compared to straight Hardcore Punk. While we may be used to many Hardcore Punk bands featuring a screaming/yelling vocalist for the most, Rody Walker vocals display his proficiency in the singing department, as well as hardcore yells (with the other members also occasionally providing backup vocal screams).

The album overall, is not really a great departure from many Post Hardcore influenced metalcore bands of the time. While there is many lead guitar melodies, there is not any real technical soloing demonstrated in this EP, suggesting perhaps Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar had no quite developed much in the way of technical lead guitar skills at the time. Some of the rhythm guitar is quite proficiently played, and clearly Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar are reasonably developed in the this department at this time. Some particularly memorable and more challenging riffing shows up on I Am Dmitri Karamazov and the World is My Father (the song title itself a reference to a book written by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky). Arif Mirabdolbaghi demonstrates a greater level of technical proficiency than average hardcore punk bassists, more up to the level of a metalcore band, which is quite suitable here.

The production is quite good for an EP, although it can sound a little flat, but certainly not enough of an issue to bother me.

Musically, the album shows hints towards a progressive nature, but this obviously doesn't make it a particularly progressive record by any means. By metalcore standards (a good standard for this EP to be judged by), it's very good, but nothing remarkable and certainly many other bands in the metalcore field at the time and prior to the release of this EP were displaying higher levels of musicianship and more complex compositions, but nonetheless it shows a sign of a band stepping a little bit outside of the boundaries associated with a lot of metalcore and hardcore punk

A good record, that some hardcore punk/posthardcore and metalcore fans may quite like.

"A Calculated Use of Sound" is an EP released by American hardcore/metalcore act Protest the Hero. The EP was released in 2003 through Underground Operations. "A Calculated Use of Sound" was re-issued in 2004 with the bonus track "Soft Targets Dig Softer Graves".

The music is hardcore/metalcore. The pace is generally very high and the music is very energetic as a result of that. There is much focus on the vocals from singer Rody Walker who has...how should I put this?...a very distinct voice. Somewhat comparable to emo rock/metal vocalists but a bit more aggressive. It´s definitely an aquired taste if you´ll be able to enjoy Rody Walker´s high pitched and nasale vocal style. There are lots of harmony vocals on the EP too and most members actually contribute with vocals on the songs.

The band is well playing and the sloppy and untight playing that they treated us with on their debut EP "Search for the Truth (2002)" is fortunately a thing of the past. The band has matured greatly since that EP. Rody Walker has also learned to control his voice better on "A Calculated Use of Sound" than was the case on the messy predecessor.

The sound production is decent and suits the music well.

Protest the Hero have really improved on "A Calculated Use of Sound" compared to "Search for the Truth" and I´m starting to hear promises in the music. Overall I still have a slight issue with the vocal style though and the music isn´t the most exciting thing either. Therefore I´d say a 2 - 2.5 star (45%) rating isn´t all wrong. I really like the energy in the music and that saves much.