Serving Up Swords

Serving up Swords is a metal-core band from seattle, following the genre description to the letter. The heavy vocals are just ugly, angry screams (which is a good thing, for the most part). The choruses include clean vocals alternated with this same screaming. The transitions here are pretty fluid, not seeming like Serving up Swords just dropped a clean vocals chorus into the middle of the song. These choruses just don't seem to bear the same weight that the rest of the song does, in any instance, feeling a bit light and almost distant. It would also help if the vocalists clean vocals were a bit better, his voice seems a bit shaky, but its not a major issue. The guitar riffs are aggressive, but not particularly heavy, with plenty of almost squealing chords mixed in; as well as the standard chugging which can completely wreck a good song if done wrong. I'm fairly confident that the chugging was done well here. The drumming seems to be on par with trivium's efforts, including what I'd still deem to be predictable, somewhat recycled patterns, but the drums are definitely better here than I'd expect on a metalcore album.

Serving up Swords' myspace EP demonstrates that they know how to produce a typical, somewhat bland metalcore offering, with clean sections that are just a little bit of a let down from the rest of the songs. 5/10 on originality, 8.5/10 on effort and execution.

6.75/10

http://www.myspace.com/servingupswords