• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Winterburn's debut EP Curing the Plague begins with the abrasive and aggressive song "Too Late for Tears." It's assaultive and in your face: a prime slice of The Haunted-inspired modern thrash. Really though, that's all there is that's worthwhile on this release. The next song, "White Feather" is mediocre, despite a few creative guitar riffs. Then comes the downright bad and almost unlistenable song "The Wedding Ring." Without any hyperbole, I can say that I've listened to this song about five or six times, and each time I've struggled through it, even turning it off a few times. It's that bad.

I want to be nice to these guys. I really do. They're a young band, assumedly very excited and proud of this EP. But the sad fact is that it's mediocre if not irritating, apart from the opening track. Let's start with the vocals: Is there a new thrash band that will kindly find a vocalist who doesn't employ these unintuitive and imbecilic "tough guy" shouts? They all seem to want to beat people up, instead of conveying sincere emotion through their vocals. Next up is the atrocious drum sounds. The snare sounds like a muffled tin can and the double bass like someone gurgling underwater. Adding to the irritation is that they are absurdly overmixed. By the end of the EP, it felt like my eardrums are being grinded by razors. The second two songs on this EP feature grossly uninteresting and often rankling melodies.

If you go to shows to wear your baseball cap backwards and show off your meticulously practiced karate, then this is the album for you. The opening song shows a great deal of promise for this band, but the next songs make me doubt they can replicate such quality. It's the only factor preventing this album's numeric rating from being much, much lower.