Artist: I vs I
Label: Self-released
Release: 2013
Length: 51:09
Rating: 3.3/5
No, this isn’t yet another dry metalcore product of the kind that pops up here in Slovenia and fizzles out into nothingness almost immediately. This time we can put the story simply: after decades of activity and usefulness, thrash metal hasn’t burnt itself out and gone rustic. It has picked up a few more technical layers and modernized, and it has by no means given up the pedantic musical craft in either the melodic or the rhythm section of a band. Slovenia has always had whole echelons of guitarists who, after James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine, or the sadly prematurely departed genius Dimebag Darrell, took younger names as their role models. Maybe that’s the guys from more resonant bands like In Flames, or from a whole string of once-excellent outfits that are losing a bit of their shine these days (Unearth, As I Lay Dying, God Forbid or whatever else slides into the foreground). Plenty of exceptional but, for many, too-sharp diamonds like The Haunted, Lazarus A.D. and other celebrants of tuneful guitar cannonades unfortunately never get touched in the best possible way. But every so often an exception comes along that gives fans of somewhat more demanding guitar grind hope that not everything is as burnt out and pointless as you might think amid the flood of completely identical one-day fads. Bands with no essence, point, identity or pair of their own balls once sprang up like mushrooms on the metalcore meadow, but precious few survived the test of time and proved themselves as something better, something exceptional, something capable of longer-term self-preservation and an evolutionary test of strength. This time let’s leave the makeup, the tabloid stories and the gossip neatly to one side, even though a bit of dubious spotlight glow can be found on the Styrian band I Vs. I (what do you expect when the frontman tried his luck on the pop-TV show Talents, landed in a band with the telling name In & Out, dated a whole palette of Slovenian showbiz ladies and the cameras simply love him?). This time I’ll deliberately set this crap, which has nothing to do with music, aside, deliberately forget about it and focus on the music that the album Black In Bloom offers to the wide world.
It’s not a revolution on first listen, and it’s not about discovering new continents, but the level at which the ground gets plowed, starting with the opener The Dirge, is an almost perfectly executed one. Nothing is missing, least of all the perfect sound and the balanced onslaught of two explosively loaded guitars, served up selflessly by Aleš Maurič and the rhythmically flawless Luka Novak. The rest of the package keeps up too, with Nikita Herman’s rhythmically well-propped drums and Oliver Čepek’s equally well-propped bass. And while a band’s sound can still be manipulated somehow, nobody can fully fake a voice, least of all by hiding behind tons of effects without being exposed as the weak link of the band. Kori’s vocals are surprisingly potent and full, almost Anglo-Saxon perfect in both the guttural registers and the melodic delivery of the more tuneful chorus hooks. Whiffs of Unearth ooze from the pores, along with the more melodic passages of God Forbid, Lazarus A.D. and the masters of Trivium, and the solos stand out, fresh and without forced adherence to recipes. I Vs. I are an interesting hybrid of thrasher hardness and playfulness and a more modern core fusion of somewhat worn-out but still pleasant-sounding forms. The tectonically restless terrain gets even denser with the sharper diction of an extremely reactive and fired-up mistress of the god of the underworld. Mistress Of Seth is one of the record’s strongest aces, and it has to be admitted that the well-balanced equilibrium of every member of the band shows in every single bar. Double bass drums and brutally unpredictable guitars built on sweet riffs, with just-violent-enough harmonies over all of it, and the melody-inclined youngsters aren’t afraid to carve out minutes for more exploratory excursions into the unknown (especially on six hellishly sweet strings). The bloody slaughter leaves blood-red stains on the hands, and Red Handed follows the trail of opening outward. The slightly repetitive structure of the previously hinted-at and outlined line does turn a touch saccharine for a moment, especially after the more acoustic interlude, but the youngsters return pretty quickly to a more aggressive path of adding contours that hit right in the center of perception. An impressive collage of studio perfection that conjures up the image of a stadium setup, a huge stage, great dynamics between the band members and explosive musical matter that can serve up more than two dimensions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu2k6qrdYs
A more balladic interlude of an exceptional song, Black In Bloom starts with an acoustic intro and light orchestration. After Kori’s sweet entrance into the ambient, melancholic opening, it shifts into the harder-hitting sphere of pure thrash. The punch of well-balanced metrics is a reminder that these guys are damn good musicians, tempered over the last few years by fusing old influences with a more modern, metalized spectrum of sound, and leaving plenty of their own homegrown DNA on almost progressively saturated textures. I’m not claiming you’ve never heard anything similar anywhere, but it’s true that this time the craftsmanship shows. The goods are nicely polished, gallant and extremely listenable, and this is no clumsy copy of an already well-known copy. All Day Insane glides through its quality sonic ballet between the left and right ear flawlessly, with a slightly stale aftertaste of yet another bid for harmonized audience reactions. At least my pair of ears enjoys the superbly conceived music far more than the benign lyrics, along with salvos of ever-surprising guitars in constant dialogue and interaction with the relentlessly solid rhythmic wall of drums and the pedantic bass.
The song Thorn A Venue allows itself to add a bit of recession-era depression and a fresh outburst of rage at the state of society and the spirit of the times. God sent us into the world to carry our burdens and, through self-proving, find the way to redemption from the total loss of soulfulness, heart and sense of humanity, sings Kori. The melodically turbulent Mare’s Nest sounds more promising. When the night is over, darkness is our light, blackness our sound and tone, our voice, I Vs. I announce. After a melodramatic turn into sweeter harmonies, the guys decide to swap the perfection of violence and murder for seduction with sweeties, with more refined and more gallant contours. For my taste there’s too much visible eagerness to please wider audiences who strive for charm in one go, on the first try, but the band’s musical spectrum is still big and magnetic. The more Stone Sour-ish alternative Chapter Trinity shows the full brutal potential of Kori’s vocal cords, though the lyrical level stays at the level of impressions, torn-up verses that do stick together into a whole you can digest without complications or awkward lumps in the throat. I’m deliberately setting the lyrical layer aside, because stereotypical tales about quarreling nations, the collapse of civilization and the fact that we’re fucked no longer go down well with me. If you listen only to the sound and the way the words and melody end, you can undoubtedly fall in love with the whole thing in one go. Not even the supremely multidimensional brilliance of Fall From Grace spoils it (this time a hefty layer of the brilliant sweet Lazarus A.D. can be heard underneath it all), nor does the crystal-clear sky of Weaker Blamed (the musical domination is total and damn successful). The closing act of the album goes to one of its more radio-friendly moments, the song Take This Fall, on which the quintet shows every element of its craft in a single place. There’s no shortage of melodic color, and the rhythmic variety (in it you wander out of sweet balladic mists onto an nu-metal dance party and then, on returning to the romantic podium, deliberately slip off to the thrasher corner of the universe) melts into splendidly schizophrenic vocals. With them, the band’s lead throat creeps corrosively under your skin and sows the seeds of longing (especially, I bet, among representatives of the gentler sex), while the manly skeptics get finally run over by the genius guitars that level everything to the ground and, at the end, as the acoustics fade out, march off toward new victories.
Is this a victory, or a deed whose gallantry and beauty we can’t deny, yet we can also utter the fateful »but« and offer a few useful pointers? The generically forged verses do strive to discharge the negative ions of the times we live in, but the sweet doggerel in English leaves the surface of my dark soul’s ocean fairly untouched. I can’t say the same for the well-measured music, since the sonic image, the sonic story of the band is damn dominant and of the noblest shine. As I Lay Dying, Unearth, Bring Me The Horizon – watch out, the Slovenian cavalry is coming, I would have said without hesitation a few years back. After the gradual dying off of the core scene’s heartland, though, I can only express regret that the guys didn’t record Black In Bloom a couple of years ago. The effect, even on the international scene and market, would have been far bigger than at this point, here and now, at the end of 2013. I Vs. I are undoubtedly a band that will leave a noticeable mark on Slovenian stages. For the next steps in the studio, I’d advise the guys on just a few smaller fixes: maybe a bit more rigorous editing when it comes to the lyrics, and a bit more of their own, less reserved impressions of the world around them, to which they could also offer some kind of alternative. Maybe that’s left for the next record, which will, I bet, reflect a bit more creative freedom and feverish desire to level up. I also hope it won’t give up the steely potency of the already perfect musical metrics, which already penetrate so hard and deep, right to the center of feeling and remembering the name of a band we can expect something good, better and gradually flawlessly best from, right?
Lineup
Tim Kores – vocals
Aleš Maurič – guitar
Luka Novak – guitar
Oliver Čepek – bass
Nikita Herman – drums
Production
Hannes Jaeckel
Tracklist
1. The Dirge
2. Mistress Of Seth
3. Red Handed
4. Black In Bloom
5. All Day Insane
6. Thorn A Venue
7. Mare’s Nest
8. Chapter Trinity
9. Fall From Grace
10. Weaker Blamed
11. Take This Fall
