Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Corpus Christi The Darker Shades of White Company: Victory Records Release: 2008 Genre: Metalcore Reviewer: Chaoslord

Metalcore with a twist of hard rock to it

Alright, so sometimes I buy records based purely on the cover art. Crazy I know, but I have lucked out and found some good stuff using this method. You find some garbage too but it usually equals itself out. Anyways, I digress.

This album was a great pick up. The band is very similar to Killswitch Engage, eerily so at times. They are signed with Victory Records so it's Metalcore with a twist of hard rock to it. This album marks the bands first major label release. The vocals battle back and forth between hardcore and clean vocals. The Hardcore vocals are handled by Max O'Connell and the clean vocals are handled by rhythm guitarist Jarrod Christman.

The hard vocals are a good mix of growls and screams with the occasional bark thrown in. The clean vocals are very reminiscent of Killswitch's Howard Jones. The two styles blend well together and create a nice point-counter point system if you will. Christman is joined on guitar by Derek Ayres and together these two shredders create some pretty nasty riffs.

I found my head bobbing to many tracks on this album. Any artist that can get my head banging at least has some good quality riffage going on. The drums are handled by Peter Keres who pounds the drums with a heavy hand and fast feet. The bass is abused by Phil Smith who has some pretty sick grooves and lines throughout the album.

The production is very crisp and on headphones or a great stereo system, you can hear each instrument and what they're doing. Now as much as I like the album, the one complaint I would give is that at times I felt like I was listening to Killswitch. Now don't get me wrong, Killswitch is great but if I wanted to listen to them I would have bought their album.

Despite this minor setback I would definitely recommend picking this one up on your next trip to your favorite metal merch dealer. You will enjoy if you are a fan of Killswitch or looking for something with some edge and some depth to it as well.