Perpetuated

Screamo is an ailing genre so close to my heart it could be considered an inanimate extension of myself: a genre so unified by a sole sense of purpose; a great community spirit; and the initiative to reinvent itself when its term of self-identification was taken and bastardised by the mainstream media. It always gives me great pleasure to find bands embodying these ideals and principles, and Lion of the North have been no exception; a 15-minutes, 4-track EP manages to be nearly as epic in intention as many full-lengths of lesser bands.
A quote from the US series of The Office precedes and serves as an (oddly compelling) introduction to the first of the four tracks, Ghost Stories. Make no mistake about it, from here, the EP continues as it means to go on: raw; unprocessed; visceral; intense. Ever shifting, technical guitar lines are juxtaposed with screaming and singing of high calibres; even for this genre. Hard-and-fast is mixed with slow-and-technical with no prior thought to continuity and it just works.
Point me to Providence marks Lion of the North’s extremely technical side, and shows their instrumental ability to full effect: even the harder parts of the song showcase this – ‘jangly’ guitars replace the previously demonstrated distortion, and this pattern seems to be repeated across the vocals, with a preference for clean vocals shown. I am Orion is a tour de force of the more aggressive side of Lion of the North’s music: preference once again thrown upon screamed vocals, with the clean vocals serving as mere (yet very pleasant) accompaniment. The outro screams define this song, and serve to single-handedly take the song to the soaring heights it reaches.
There’s Always Next Year tops off an already impressive EP with a track most well-rounded and suited to being an end-of-record track. The steady picking of a sole treble-biased guitar rises into the picking of two and drumming; and then into the vocals of, at first, a sole vocalist, but within 15 seconds a most well-crafted chant of several vocalists. An interlude of screaming and a heavier guitar line precedes another build up of the sort evidenced at the beginning. It is a true 3 minute epic.
Bands like this need the support; they need that which all true artists need: peer validation of their art. They have most definitely earned that here, I just hope that they manage to make something of themselves, and become somewhat of a phenomenon on this circuit.

I'd love critique on it.

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