Produced by Phil Nicolo (Life Of Agony, Dog Eat Dog) and featuring former Downset. drummer Chris Hamilton, Plug Ugly definitely have some high expectations to live up to with this their new demo. Combining rapcore ideals with a somewhat sludgy New England metalcore sound, the group draw similarities to the likes of Downset., Project 86 and Eastcide, yet they also inject a touch of more mid-90's melodic metal to diversify their attack.

With a pronounced delivery on rap styled verses that rivals Public Enemy's Chuck D., the bands frontman spits out his words with bitter refrain, coupling them with an occasional edgy scream and hardcore reminiscent bark, bringing a lighter version of older Project 86 to mind. Meanwhile, his raw melodic contributions are a lot less prevalent, though they do help balance the material and fortify it as a whole. Guitar wise, the songs are littered with punchy modern metal based riffs, complete with a few swirling effect tinged ambient excursions that serve their purpose well, yet don't really jump out or try anything too new. The basslines are perhaps one of the more dominant factors on this demo, using hooky, looming progressions that possess a light hip-hop influence, arming the band with a disturbingly jagged and rugged flair. The percussion is heavy handed and as expected mirrors Chris' work with Downset., adding a wealth of cleverly placed snare hits and thundering kick drum thuds, which display impressive refinement as they take shape through creative timing structures.

For the most part aggro, the bands material is progressive in a song writing sense, allowing multiple buildups and breakdowns to flare up and fade out as each song passes by. The music is heavy and at times even hooky in a seemingly unintended manner, and the occasional incorporation of turntables seems to only broaden its horizons all the more. However, unfortunately the music is also a bit dated sounding and though the band do sound honest and true to themselves, the genre which they have chosen to express themselves with has already been well traversed in the past. As such, without anything substantially new being brought to the table, the music heavily lacks innovation. There's also a fairly strong resemblance to older Project 86 here and when this is coupled with the aforementioned flaws, it seems unlikely that Plug Ugly will have an easy route ahead of them to get noticed, because at present, they sound like a solid band and not much else.