Order By Chaos organize a melting pot of sounds on this album assembling influences of funk, reggae, metal and rapcore firmly within their ranks. Crisp nu metal locks itself in combat with soulful bass lines that blaze a trail for sickened screams and blistering rap vocals. For the most part an experimental rapcore sound is attempted here and the band can bring to mind groups like Insolence, except where the latter drifts off into electronic programming, O.B.C. tends to experiment with funk and high energy grooves. Vocally there's a slick and slightly vulnerable hip hop delivery that lets loose with grating screams and melodic lung draining hums and choruses. There's a tendency to change from what could best be described as hardcore styled snarling to introspective verbal ramblings, that end up becoming intoxicated with their own rage spewing words at a continually faster pace. Guitars are more on the high end of the spectrum and use a lot of effects giving depth and flair. Briskly distorted they tend to get drowned out behind the bass, but do churn out some interesting riffs that serve as a weird ambiance with bright ideas and intrepid playing. Bass is groove heavy and full of funk and heart, slap and pop stylings show up on quite a few occasions, kicking the band in the ass to bring the speed up a few notches, while full on reggae/dub styled progressions slow things down and keep the melodic quality in context. Not limited in style, they do follow the guitar parts at some points in the CD, but for the most part do designate themselves as the most lively component of the bands musical compositions. Drums are tightly tuned and snare heavy with fast beats and a brittle playing style that can tend to be sparse in terms of variation, still even though the percussion is unusually tightly packed, the hits and rolls laid down here are satisfying and don't sound at all out of place. Turntables make their presence known with deft ability and feature more of a battling DJ technique rather than a straight hip hop or background noise approach like those taken by most DJ's in a heavier band. Enjoyable and spacey, the scratches add an extra dimension to the mixture of instruments and seem right at home here. The band powers through numbers and showcases a cornucopia of dynamic elements that go great lengths to preserve a constant motion throughout the band, there's some unexpected tracks with catchy rhythmic qualities and the bands ability to bring it down and speed it up with an almost jazz sensibility is easily one of their best traits. Unfortunately though the CD can still feel a bit robbed of its momentum from the tinny sounding production. The sound isn't as full as it can be and as such the guitars border on a static like tone rather where there could be instead a rich vivid soundscape. Another downfall to the CD would have to be the somewhat misplaced vocals, they tend to be too loose and end up criss crossing all over, where a more restrained approach would fortify the bands sound with a lethal attack. Despite these cons though the music and ideas here still stand strong and the bands ability to create heady and funky tracks that have enough aggression embedded in them to warrant a release of adrenaline is something that deserves respect, Order By Chaos can definitely keep their various chaotic song structures and influences in order, and with a bit more time at the throne, this group will easily be able to spread its auditory ideals across the nation with little resistance.
(4 / 5)