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Upon first listens to Within the Great and the Venom by Violent Devoties I thought initially it was very boring and cliché. Now upon many more listens there are still parts that hang in there under the cliché section. They seem to be mislabeled as Brutal Death/Grind. I would put them more under Death Metal as their sound does not seem to incorporate many Grindcore features.

What is wrong with this EP? The one thing that irks me the most has to be the use of some of the most horribly overused breakdowns. The EP does not have a lot of kick behind the faster parts. The blast beats are bland and do the same thing every time. But back with the breakdowns, not only do they sound like a very generic breakdown that many of the Deathcore bands play today; it is usually in a spot that is very obvious as to when it will happen. Not such a bad thing, but try to throw in a little variation. Some is tried at the beginning of a couple breakdowns but within a second it is back to the same old, same old. Now to the good... I think every instrument sounds really good, everything has a thick enough tone. The guitars play some good riffs that can be pretty memorable with enough listens. I also enjoy the vocals quite a bit.

It is obvious there is room for improvement. I think that if the band were to speed up the music a bit it would be better. During faster parts it really gets me headbanging, but then comes up one of those cliché breakdowns. All in all it isn't that bad of an EP, but there needs to be more variations in the breakdowns and the possibility of their music getting faster. I will be interested in hearing what they put out in the future.