With the first listen, the guitars hits you like a ton of bricks, heavy distorted six-string. Shawn the vocalist shouts the lyrics with anguish "once again to strive, to beat, over and over again" to "my walk purified, my peave given by God". The guitars will satisfy a metal headbanger's cravings, the drumming and vocals is every hardcore addicts dream. Although i don't listen to hardcore often, this album blends hardcore with metal, thus making it accessible to both people who like Hardcore and Metal. Spoken vocals mixed with brutal guitars filled with energy will definately get on on his/her feet and start headbanging to this CD. My personal friend who can't stand Hardcore, think that this album is about one of the greatest musically(not vocally)-he can't stand Hardcore vocals.
When it come to "Exchange"-the 3rd track, the bass and drumming gets into gear and alotta section of that song's slow part is driving in the 4-string. "Exchange" ends with the vocalist screaming/shouting for about 9 seconds which seemed like eternity to me. Wonder whether his vocal cords got messed up after that. "Particle" the 4th song starts with bass...and the distortion of the guitars comes in slowly. The drumming is slow at first but gradually picks up till it's a very fast tempo song. Again the focus are on the guitars. Heavy and fast-that's the key..with great melody of course. Endure starts with some clean guitars and percussion...the melody will seem unlikely to be in a metal/hardcore album. BUT when the drums starts to come in after about 40 seconds of clean guitars, in slow beats.. you can feel the energy start to gather, and all of it is released when the vocals comes in.. the ferocity of Shawn is commentable. The guy behind the drums-Jesse is really precise in the drumming.
The last track Song 1 comprimises of 2 songs...the actual song itself, the perfect track to end the whole album, makes 1 person crave for more of Zao and a hidden slow number with all spoken guitars which come in several minutes after Song 1 is really great...it speaks of the crucifixtion of Christ if I'm not mistaken.
SCORE: 9 /10