ALBUM REVIEW: Fantasy – LANDMVRKS
Considering they’ve been a band for little over four years; LANDMVRKS have got a level of ballsy self confidence that you can’t help but admire. Their debut record Hollow was produced by vocalist Florent Salfati and guitarist Nicolas Exposito which, as well as being a great money saver, is one mighty risk. It was a roll of the dice that paid dividends though, the French metalcore crew are still around to tell the tale; and in most cases – this is all a debut record is meant to accomplish.
Sophomore record Fantasy finds the Frenchmen potentially playing with fire again; this time strictly musically. Your level of adoration towards this album potentially depends on what you classify as metalcore in 2018. If you’re hoping for modern AT THE GATES or ATREYU then you’re certain to be left wanting here. Fantasy plays quite loosely with the strict confines of metalcore, and it does so to its praise at times.
Wake Up Call and False Reality play to the contemporary conventions of the sub-genre. Dominant, authoritative openings which bounce around a carefully crafted chorus, all leading up to categorically pulverising breakdowns. Fantasy is not just at its most simplistic here, but also its most compelling. No frills or leaps around a style – just two tracks that want to rough you up.
Away from this LANDMVRKS make it difficult to pin them down to one specific musical area. Sitting somewhere between WAGE WAR and VEIL OF MAYA, the quartet at times get lost in the shuffle of their own madness. Both Blistering and Reckoning bounce from hard rock, to metalcore, to deathcore instantaneously, and it sounds divisive. Surprisingly, the instrumentation isn’t what causes the issue here; the guitar and drum fills remain either brutal, or punchy, instead it’s the clean vocals of Salfati which is the genesis of the speed bump.
The transition from hard riff to compelling chorus is a goldmine when done effectively, but this is a concept you rarely come across throughout this record. Scars has all the beautiful, intricate guitar work you could want but Salfati‘s melodic vocals subtract a fair share of the tracks oomph. It’s frustrating when LANDMVRKS build up strong foundations to have them dislodged by an obsession to please everyone at once.
Salfati sounds much more at home within the walls of The Worst Of You And Me and Dead Inside, his pacey spits here add layers of attitude which don’t exist elsewhere on the record. Whereas Alive stands as one of the most tokenistic “let’s just chuck a love song on the album” tracks you’ll ever hear, and sounds awkwardly out of place.
Fantasy is an album that while spends too much of its time trying to tick every box, still does enough to be a high quality release. If you can remove yourself from the occasional flat melody, what you have here is a barrage of riffs and breakdowns which are set to curdle your blood from head to toe. If LANDMVRKS spend their next writing sessions focusing on what makes them great and not what makes them accessible – album three could be a real game changer for them.
Rating: 7/10
Fantasy is out now via Arising Empire.
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