Album Review :
Affiance - No Secret Revealed
By Joshua Clark in Reviews | Comments closed
Band: Affiance
Title: No Secret Revealed
Label: Bullet Tooth
Release Date: November 30, 2010
Reviewer: Joshua Clark
Track Listing:
- Mad As Hell
- Call To The Warrior
- Nostra Culpa
- For Power
- A Monster Fed
- The Hive
- A reading From The Book Of
- Der Fuhrer
- Dissent!
- Calculate and Control
Affiance is a Metal/Rock/Metalcore band that was recently signed to Bullet Tooth records. Out of Cleveland, Ohio they are bringing us their Bullet Tooth Records debut No Secret Revealed.
The band’s lyrics range from some brief spiritual topics, as well as some political ideals. The lyrical writing was something I enjoyed out of the album. A majority of this album calls for action, not being complacent and satisfied with the current state of the world. But being concerned with the worlds current state and for us all to have the courage to stand up and fight, to make a change. Affiance offers a positive message of truth and not settling for complacency. They also promote the ideas of standing up for what you believe in, and not giving up. Which I have total respect for that message and applaud the band for sharing it. Unfortunately even though the band has a respectable message, the music is a little lackluster and leaves something to be desired.
Dennis Tvrdik is the lead vocalist for Affiance and his vocals range from a straightforward rock voice to a mix of some kind of a gruff/shouty/ yell. These vocals really didn’t do too much for me and came off as a little annoying at times. They are not the worst vocals I have heard before, but at the same time they aren’t mind blowing either.
There seemed to be an imbalance of vocal and music levels. I felt at numerous times the vocals would overpower the instruments. I think with the instrument mixed in a little louder or just given some more attention at times than the vocals; it would have given the album a better feel.
The musicianship is pretty straightforward and typical of other bands of the genre. There wasn’t really anything that stood out and grabbed my attention. There are a few neat guitar parts here and there but nothing outstanding. The sound overall is not bad but its more of what I would listen to in the background and nothing really that had that wow factor. Sure it doesn’t sound too bad, but the same could be said about numerous other bands. Also there is too much of the same sound and it becomes really familiar track to track. Just by listening to “Call To The Warrior” you get a good idea of the sound you are in for throughout the album.
An interesting side note is in the press release the band was compared to having a sound like Haste the Day and TDWP (by the way James Barney from TDWP has a guest apperance on “Dissent”.) Initially I was a little excited by this comparison but after listening to the album I didn’t really see Affiance sound anywhere close to either of those bands. Affiance isn’t as heavy as either of those bands and vocal stylings are completely different. So maybe I’m missing something but that comparison seems pretty far off to me.
Overall: I was rather disappointed with the album, it is just a rather generic release to me. The vocals were rather mediocre and the whole sound of the album was too similar. At points it just seemed like one long song, with no distinct changes song to song. While the music sounds fine and message is solid it just wasn’t enough for me to really get pulled in by the record and walk away satisfied. While the band has in their bio they wanted to shatter all expectations and break the mold of how metal should “sound,” I simply didn’t see that here. I admire the band’s goal and support them 100% to keep striving towards that and working to achieve that on an album were they can blow everyone away. But as far as No Secret Revealed is concerned, this isn’t that album.