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Having a band named "New Miseries" be an opener for the new year ain't quite hopeful, don't you agree? If nothing, we can consider it poetic. Either way, it is my fault for this coming so late if you consider the fact that the band members contacted me about posting this demo in late November. Better late than never I guess.
"New Miseries" is a five piece based in Northeast Pennsylvania bringing us sounds of hardcore with this four song demo. For all those who don't know my musical preferences very much, I'll say right away that I am not a big fan of hardcore. Most acts I consider way too generic with too much song which sound alike the previous one. There are those hardcore bands which I do enjoy and this band being here definitely puts them in that basket.
So what's the deal with "New Miseries"? Well, first of all, it's a ten minute record with two-something minute tracks, so no holding back, it just lifts you up and in a blink it throws you back to the ground. There are no standard though-guy-bullshit breakdowns, those being extremely well replaced with a change of pace and some slight shifts in melody. In addition, the massive buildups with chunks of riffs are present, but once you mix this with the previous pace changing you get quite a flowing record.
"Black & Blue" is really an excellent example of the above described flow. The 2:44 minute song starts out with a standard aggressive outburst. After a couple of seconds the melody changes in mid air into a buildup toward higher tones (so to speak), a sort of intro after an intro. The instruments become sort of lighter, but then it goes backwards and you get the instrumental section getting a much deeper tone. It all gains a gradual increase of speed, so afterwords it all gets back to that standard hardcore tempo, yet in the end it becomes excellently melodic until it drifts away.
Kinda shitty description, but hopefully you got the point. The overall composition of the demo is quite good, seeing as though the songs are short, but there is a lot going on. If my words fail to give you a picture of what it sounds like, imagine "More Than Life" but with a bit more aggressive instruments and slightly less melodic. The thing that draws "New Miseries" back is recording quality. Despite the quality being ok, I feel that it could be better especially when there is so much to be heard and analyzed.
We should keep in mind that this is actually a demo recording, so from this point it can only get better. Hopefully they will further expand their merits and correct the flaws. Definitely a potential here and you should check them out for yourself. Get in touch with them on their myspace page found here. Enjoy!
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