Labels: Feast Or Famine – React With Protest
Review by: Oli Saunders
I’ll be honest, I first heard Titan a few years back on their split with June Paik and I didn’t like them at all. I downloaded their songs as MP3s and soon deleted them in fact. But my tastes have come a long way, from the days when I first listened to Orchid and didn’t really rate them either, to now when I feel I have have traversed the depths of most of screamo and Bremen hardcore that exists on record. Titan appear to fill a niche somewhere in this landscape, not really fitting in with either genre but with clear influences from both. They have definitely got a lot of metal in their sound too, even more than the Bremen sound, but not enough to put me off them. The result is a band which sounds a little bit different yet successfuly manage to mix styles into something crushingly heavy.
Four songs occupy this full length, beginning with ‘The Glory Of The Fleet’. The pace of the music is fairly slow for the most part, but devastating. This first song starts off with a minute of instrumental build up before the pummeling begins. It is what Soar or Season might sound like if they played twice as slow. The vocals are deep but absolutely spot on and whilst there is a main vocalist on occasion another chips in. There are subtle variances in between songs but overall it’s nineteen minutes of sludgey down tempo hardcore to melt your brain.
The second song is a slight let down. It is just getting going and then suddenly ends after only fourty seconds. Seems a bit strange and just doesn’t fit well. But the third and fourth songs make up for it; ‘The Standard’ is a much faster track and rips through abstract philosophical lyrics in four minutes. Probably the best is saved for last in ‘Next Winter’. It has a moment of quiet but well suited melody towards the end before it launches into final riffs and vocals that tear me apart. If any of the above sounds up your street then check this out.
2nd May 2010