Search - Ceasefire :: Cycle of Unbelief

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

BattleChimp | Australia, 51st State of the USofA... | 07/02/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"'We are the hollow men......' comes the voice of T.S.Elliot reading one of his poems. At this point you're double checking to make sure that you haven't been given a spoken word CD of classical poetry. Then the hum of guitar feedback slides in over the sombre voice and the next thing you know a beautiful punk bass line is upon you. The rest comes crashing in all at once;the drums on the bass, the guitars and the singer(Daniel Phelan) screaming "Your spirit, spurs me on...". The first song doesn't ever really let up and sets the tone nicely for the rest of the album. The singing is nice and raw, sitting somewhere between hardcore screaming and punk 'singing'. The first song has the essential ingredient for a good hardcore punk song-some nice gang vocals.

The second song 'Shift To Simple' takes the vocals to a slightly thicker and harsher place but the chorus has some nice use of clean vocals (well, as clean as the vocals get on this album) in a great counterpoint to the guttural shouting of the lead vocals -"Money doesn't make amends and never will" The third and fourth songs 'Berlin' and 'Outstretched Hands' contain the heaviest of the vocals, but let me re-iterate, these are not metalcore vocals, they mostly keep more to the hardcore punk side of things rather than the metal side. The rest of the album continues on in much the same vein; raw vocals that shift from thicker hardcore style to guttural punk singing, the drums all the while popping tautly along and driving the songs at a good pace. For the most part the bass and guitars are neither crap nor outstandingly brilliant. They are quite able and adequate which in my opinion fits the hardcore genre pretty well. I love this album. On first listen I liked it but, like with alot of hardcore albums, found that it lacked enough variety to hold my attention for very long. However, on further listening, and again like many hardcore albums, I got to know the songs and found that I loved it. Now I would say that the reasons I rate this as such a great album are due to three main factors; 1)This guys vocals are just so raw, emotional and honest. Now I know that hardcore and punk vocals are known for being rugged and raw but this is different. When Daniel Phelan screams there is, in my opinion, a depth of emotion evident that seems to be fuller than the sometimes two dimensional hardcore. 2)There is actually some variety. On first listen I thought -"yep, same old hardcore style-write one or two songs and then do variations on those to fill the rest of the album". But on further listening this is not the case at all. The reason I like this album more than alot of the hardcore I have is because it actually does have some variety. The vocals are always heavy and always rough but there is variety here. 3)The lyrics are great. I love punk and I love great lyrics. The lyrics here essentially fall into two categories - spiritual and social/political. The more spiritual lyrics are great for me, because they are a Christian band, but if you're not Christian, don't worry, they are not at all preachy. In fact, if you didn't know that they were Christian you probably wouldn't pick it.
The bulk of the lyrics are sociallly or politically minded and rise above the milieu of shallow, generic attempts at political lyrics attempted by most punk bands. Ceasefire offer something thoughtful and different. Anyway...on to my gripes and the reasons I didn't give this five stars. (By the way, I am not one of those people who gives everything five stars, as too many people reviewing here seem to be EG-"This album was half as good as the bands other album but because their last album was so cool I'm still giving this five stars"etc etc).1)My first gripe is the production. Production is a fine balance with any punk, however this Cd definitely falls on the underproduced side of things. They have recently signed to Solid State Records though (finally the label is getting some good punk/hardcore) so I have my fingers crossed that this problem will be rectified on the next album.2)Still not enough variety. In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm a big fan of variety in bands and though I said that Ceasefire do have more variety than alot of Hardcore bands I would still like to see some more. Despite how good this album is, punk has forever ruined my attention span and towards the end of the album I find myself drifting off a little. Like punk/hardcore? Sick of same old punk/hardcore that doesn't seem to say much and has two dimensional vocals?
Do whatever you can to check out this great Australian band. I can't recommend them unconditionally, as I'm sure not everyone will love them, but I can recommend them if you want some good, raw, thoughtful, honest and emotional(without being remotely crap and emo) hardcore.
Hope you enjoy it as much as me."