Otherhood spill out their self proclaimed "music for the rejected" on this release with snarling riffs and ambitious vocals. Leaning towards rapcore, the group sounds like a heavier version of Living Color but with edge and more breathing room, combined with a distinct funk influence to shove the songs forward. Vocals skewer with intensity and stain the tracks with an immensely aggravated feel, belting out choruses with melody. Spitting out rap like verses that play mildly on hardcore screams, they have a drawn out style to them that could be compared to an enraged version of Papa Roach frontman Jacoby. Guitars dwell in high harmonics during the bulk of this CD, squealing out shrill notes and eventually reeling themselves back in to attack with a moderately distorted riff drawn out with a loose feel and rigid scaling techniques. Bass is tuned rather low and dwells in a percussive style that is accentuated with a large dose of slap and pop, but for the most part tends to strut out chunky basslines that stick close to the percussion. Drums are solid and trash out snare filled beats that break off into consistent rapid tom rolls and thundering kick drums hits. A warm tuning is used and fits well as the beats lock in with the bass to establish a slack low end. As a finished package this CD has its moments, but it is also generally its own worst enemy, as the smothering vocals and dirty guitar work jump up for attention and overshadow the low end which almost causes the music overall to fall flat on its face. The vocals in particular don't show much restraint and although they do possess some promise during the CD's first track "Impossible Pain" as they shower the track with melody, the overtly rash verbal excursions and raspy tones that dominate this EP don't effectively tap into the necessary emotions, mostly in part due to their lack of dynamics and unfiltered feel. Another knock against the band is the guitar work, although there's some caustic booming riffs included, for the most part they dabble in distorted harmonics that don't progress and rather than create energy, they become annoying with ear numbing treble and repetition. The bass playing present here has a more radical approach and does show merit, but sadly its tuning nullifies all the promise of the slapping and popping laid out here as it would more properly be called flapping and rattling. With a tighter tuning the low end aspect of this CD could be so much more enjoyable and it's one thing that should definitely be looked into. Structure wise the loose instrumentation and rough feel when pertaining to the amalgamation of instruments as a whole, do accompany the vocals well, but with such a muddy feel its hard to take anything in to gain a real sense of release from it. Although these things can be improved with experience and time, the band commit perhaps the ultimate sin with the track "Rejected", which is essentially a slower tempo version of Tool's "Opiate" with original riff completely intact and although the band puts their own spin on it, it's hard to not lose a little respect for them for taking such a direction. Otherhood have a lot of work ahead of them before they will become a truly amazing band or one that sticks out brightly from the current crowd of up and comers for that matter, but luckily for them most debut release's are rarely done perfectly, and although the tracks included here probably don't do them justice. Admittedly though the sound they proclaim as "Othercore" does have potential, it just hasn't been completely discovered yet.
(3 / 5)