Album Review

Symphony In Peril is the next The Chariot. A band hyped for its members‘ past history, SIP caught the attention of nearly every scenester for months on end, and finally dropped their bombshell freshman release in 2003 on Facedown Records. I‘ll admit I wanted to like Symphony In Peril. Metalcore is all the rage right now, and while SIP provides speedy solos, tough breakdowns and great breakdowns, the band collectively managed to have none of these flow very well together. Lost Memoirs and Faded Pictures somehow manages to showcase Facedown‘s most unoriginal, underproduced, unplanned musical slaughter. The breakdowns empty, the speedy solos thoughtless, the vocals underproduced. Though Shawn Jonas has a lovely voice built for this genre, his band (and their production, for that matter) just can‘t seem to hold up what should be there. In fact, this CD came across to me like a mass of musical garbage. The random dissonant notes with the barely-audible drums made a hard enough listen, not to mention the lack of bass, and the lack of depth in the album altogether. Perhaps they were rushed, under too much hype and pressure, or maybe they just became overexcited at times, but in my recent memory, Lost Memoirs and Faded Pictures is about as predictable and upsetting as the World Series.

Travis Lee

[Ed. This album was mistakenly called Lost Memories and Faded Pictures. We apologize for the error.]