Sometimes I wait quite awhile on doing a review of a CD in hopes that it will grow on me and I can give it a more fair and or favorable review. I keep putting this CD in hoping to like it more each time but every time I take it out again and frown.
It's just not that good. The elements on their own aren't bad, it's just when you add them all up that the sum is all wrong. The guitar work is weird and quirky, and hey I like Dillinger so I like weird guitar work, but add that with drumming that sounds slightly off, that WEIRD and annoying keyboard sound pumping in every now and again and the same sounding vocal line and tone (good until song after song of the same and no change) and you get one horridly jumbly album. Let me say again I REALLY don't like the keyboards. They don't add much besides a really bad sounding and ill placed sound that you keep turning down your stereo or pausing it to hear if your car, computer, or stereo is freaking out only to find out it's the terrible plinky sound coming from the CD. Yeah there are some good keys parts but the bad seems to overshadow them. Or maybe there is just some weird annoying high-pitched clicking sound present throughout the cd....
Yes there are some good parts about this album. The guitars do play well on each other but for some reason it seems a bit too much. The vocals are good but once again the same sort of phrasing and tone song after song varying only to talk every now and then (with singing sprinkled sparsely about) doesn't really make them stand out. The drums are forceful and aggressive but again sound as if sometimes they are one step ahead or behind.
I'll throw this cd in to take up background noise and find myself rocking out to certain parts but if I pay too much attention to any whole song I start to reach for the eject button.
Lyrics in this album are extremely well written and are the best part of this disc. The voice does accent them but once again I bring the point up about similar phrasing and tone. "Thirst and Divert" deals with looking at our own sins and taking our eyes from God to ourselves, worrying about how bad we are instead of focusing on Him. "A Small Glance of God" is full bore praise done in blood curdling scream style. The overall theme of this album seems to be refocusing our lives and hearts off ourselves and our sin to Christ and His love. Great lyrical content with slightly par delivery.
The only thing I can say is I really really really want to like this band more but they just miss the mark for me.
5/10
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #87Reviewed by Jason DoddAlready fairly established as a surprisingly legitimate hardcore outfit, Sacramento's Anguish Unsaid further assert their claim to maim on the creative sophomore full-length The Chronicles... Perhaps taking a cue from their sactown Utopian neighbors -- and maybe even socal spock rockers like The Locust -- Anguish accentuate their violent spasms with curt tensions and maddening progressions…Dead Zine 2000Reviewed by Hey YouIf I remember correctly, when Anguish Unsaid's first album came out, I read in HM Magazine that Steve Saxby from Training For Utopia had said that it was "chaotic", among other things. I thought, "Well, if a guy from TFU can think it's chaotic, it must be pretty darn chaotic." Well, that album was, to the point of driving me to insanity along with it. Well, this one has that effect multiplied…Similar sounding releases
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1999Tantrum of the MuseThe Heart Is A Two-Headed Sperm
2002HopesfallThe Satellite Years
1996Zao / Through and ThroughTreadwater...
2004Silence The FoeSweet Sweet Suicide
