NOK's music heats up with aggravated gruff rap styled vocals and crunchy slicing riffs that wrap themselves snugly around meaty basslines and hungry drumwork. A somewhat typical MA/CT sound is in place here as a muddy hardcore meets rapcore, filled with rants and outbursts and music that sound like a cross somewhere between Trustfall, Downset. and SimpLe.
Vocally the album is surprisingly varied, although there is an aggressive rapcore delivery used the bulk of time, there's no fronting or trying to line up words making them rhyme slicky. Instead, the verbal aspect is filled with coarse screams and rant styled verses that pump up the intensity and are spit out recklessly with a sharp tongue and ferocious conviction, yet rather than become completely stagnant, they then unexpectedly burst into crooned wails similar a bit to System Of A Down's Serj Tankian. Guitars are sludgy, swatting out large riffs with a moderate downtuning and a loose playing style. More or less hardcore influenced, there's no Korn styled squeals or alien sounding effects. Rather, the sonic side of this CD is littered with straight forward riffs that drip with a staticy distortion. Bass is also a slight bit downtuned and lays down some thick foundation forming grooves that plow through the speakers and fill out the bottom end with a dense sound. Drums rely on snare variation and a medium tuning that seems to give strength to the warm reverb and hard hitting style that is utilized. Perhaps taking a note from the guitars, the drums also tend to feel very humble and don't try to impress or win over the listener, shedding such ideals for focused beats that implement repetition and the occasional tribal floor tom rumble.
After repeated listens, its safe to say that NOK feel strongly about the music they are making and don't care much for finesse or complex song structures. The direct approach showcased on this CD ends up creating a brash and uncensored look into their anger and the ways in which they choose to express it. Unfortunately though, that also ends up being a downfall for them in the long run. The instrumental contribution of the disc is filled with rage, while pissed off screams and rants shove the energy to redline levels, yet the songs don't really go anywhere. There's little variation and overall things feel too simple to demonstrate any real depth or feeling. Everything seems goes too smooth and there's no vibrant dynamics involved to keep things fresh. Although as bleak as that may sound, the band still does pull off a few things that are unexpected and the unorthodox vocals and rants are probably the best example of this, but in the end, they still don't have enough flair to make this CD revolutionary or groundbreaking. NOK definitely vent out their frustrations and vicious side, coming heavy on hard edged riffs and lung burning screams, but with such a direct flow, it's hard for anything to really catch the listeners attention or stick around after the discs run is done. As a result, the tracks eventually blur into each other and it becomes hard to even tell them apart, which suggests some extra influences or more complex/immersive songwriting should be instituted next time around. Still, that said the group manage to blow off a lot of steam and hammer out an interesting mix of old styled Mass hardcore meets modern new metal.
(3 / 5)
