7-10 Split

Item: Trial by Stone
Author: Tim Olshefski

Trial by Stone

(1999)

Reviewed by Tim Olshefski

Discogs Bandcamp

Label Screaming Giant RecordsBandoppler1999

hardcore pop punk

Sigh. This CD sucks. It's horribly bad. I can't stand it. "So what if no-name boy hates 7-10 Split?" I don't know, it's just that the review Bandoppler gave about this album said that they tolerated it. I don't understand. I complained to Earl and he told me to write this. So that's what I'm doing. Enjoy.

For starters, I just want to say that I love new-school punk. I also love hardcore. But when you combine the two, you end up with this: a disaster. The hardcore parts in this album are so out of place it makes me want to cry. Especially in Grind-Core Kid, which could've been one of the best songs on the CD. You have this happy, kind of poppy song, and then it turns into hardcore. It's a terrible combination. It sounds stupid, and, like I said, out of place. The other hardcore songs and hardcore/pop-punk songs don't bother me as much. They're still bad, but they wouldn't have been good songs anyway.

If there is one definitive thing that kills 7-10 Split, it was the vocals. I hate forced vocals more than anything. I like to hear the vocals flow naturally. It doesn't happen here. I can't really write out an example, but I'll try. In Denial-the first line: "I know I, one DAY will DIE, and I KNOW where I'm Going". It sounds like that. It hurts my ears to hear that. It makes Jon sound insecure and in unknown territory. Also, while we're on the subject of vocals, they tend to move too slow at times (see Fight for Your Life, Damian, and most of the other songs). It's boring, and it'll make you impatient for the ending of the song. Especially if you have A.D.D. And you know if you're wishing that the song would end, it's not a very good song. Also, the BGV's. They're just stupid. They're put in the most obvious places, and they sound uninspired. They could've been way more creative with those.

Onto the lyrics. Much of the time, they're pretty cheesy or just dumb sounding. Yeah, they are Godly and true, but the wording doesn't sound good. And you can tell they're searching for rhymes. They're trying as hard as they can to find anything that will rhyme. Anything at all. It makes the song sound stupid(er). At least it rhymes, though, right? Not always. For instance, In Denial (does it seem like I'm cutting up too much on this song?), they try to rhyme "going" with "certain". I could say those two words together 100 thousand times, and they won't rhyme once. "Going" does not rhyme with "certain"! Sheesh.

There is some good news, though. The songs they keep at just normal punk, if you block the vocals out of your head, they really aren't that bad, just mediocre. The production and whatnot seems pretty good, too. I'm no expert on that, but I can tell when something's wrong. It's too bad forced vocals, out-of-place-wannabe hardcore, uninteresting BGV's, and stupid lyrics had to ruin a perfectly good okay CD. But they had to come in and turn "okay" into "terrible". I'm just glad I won't have to listen to it again.