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Review: Maple Cross - Promo 1/02
Maple Cross
www.maplecross.net
Promo 1/02

Label: Independent
Year released: 2002
Duration: 10:53
Tracks: 3
Genre: Thrash Metal

Rating:
2/5


Review online: November 4, 2002
Reviewed by: Michel Renaud
Readers' Rating
How do you rate this release?

Rated 2.25/5 (45%) (4 Votes)
Review

With a name like Maple Cross, I was expecting this band to be from Canada, but nope, they're actually from Finland, and they don't sound like the other Finnish bands I've heard to date. Maple Cross mix a hell of a lot of stuff in the 3 songs spanning the nearly 11 minutes of this demo, and I think that's where the problem lies - sort of. Either the demo should have been longer to give a better idea, or they should not have tried to pack so much into such a short time. Or hell, maybe this is just not my stuff. Now, there's stuff to like on here, especially the first song, "Invincibles", which has good parts with clean vocals (which totally slay the extreme vocals found elsewhere-more on that later) and lots of good guitar melodies. The other songs are OK, varying from passable to good. At times the music is pretty good, then falls into a more simplistic style, even dangerously bordering on mallcore for a few seconds (bordering only, otherwise the review wouldn't be here ;)), then back to a more... "technical" approach. Very unequal and after several listens I just couldn't get into the stuff. The vocals are quite a deterrent, more precisely the extreme vocals are pretty much just annoying screams that lead nowhere and sound a bit forced. I think they should concentrate on the cleaner vocals that they do very well.

A mix of death, heavy, thrash combined with vocals that sometimes sound like a cross between melodic death and hardcore, that's a bit loaded and chaotic, and some people like that in their music, so I'm sure there'll be people out there calling me crazy. Well, I'm not, but you can always blame that Perrier I'm trying to drink as I write this review, I think it's doing things to my brain (I don't recommend the Perrier.) :) Anyway, judging by some reviews I've read, it seems like a number of people are definitely into this stuff, so I suggest checking out the sound samples on their site and see for yourself - this is not the "in-between" kind of stuff: You'll either like it or you won't.

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