Apiary - Lost In Focus
- Released: May 2006
- Label: Iron Clad - Metal Blade
- Rating:
About a month ago I signed up to review three Metalblade releases that were relative unknowns to me. Both Apiary and Cellador were bands I had never heard of and I had no real interest in From A Second Story Window. After listening to all three CDs I started doing the reviews. I purposefully left the Apiary CD until last. Of all three of the promos I listened to Apiary definitely was the most interesting and appealing to me. If you take a look at my reviews of the other two bands you will find that I felt that they were mediocre, but they showed some talent and could possibly evolve into something really solid. Apiary, on the other hand, caught my attention immediately.
Hailing from San Jose, California the band’s name has something to do with bee keeping, of all things. Regardless of the odd name of the band, their debut album is a very solid, well thought-out collection of 13 tracks of crushing metal. With a sound that has elements of Coalesce and Meshuggah, the songs all follow a common theme that would not sound out of place coming from the rehearsal space of the Red Chord. The schizophrenic guitars jump from song to song while their quality rhythm section churns out a down tuned sledgehammer of stop-start aggression. The quality of the songs are maintained throughout the disc; however, the opening track “Pain is the Reason” along with tracks “Extract” and “Intervention” were ultimately my favorite tracks from the album.
Aside from the music, these guys do not appear to wear girls jeans or any sort of makeup. They just look like average metal dudes, which will get you points in my book. It is obvious that the music is more important than the image of the band. On the down side, I heard that the band has parted ways with its singer. This could ultimately be a positive change. The singer was competent to be sure, but was rather one dimensional in his vocal delivery. On Lost In Focus the singer was definitely not the focus or the highlight of the music, but complemented the sound. A more dynamic singer could push the sound to another level where the vocals and the music would work together to deliver an even better performance. Apiary is definitely a band to keep an eye on over the next couple years, but for the time being go out to a record store or hop on the internet and purchase a copy of this excellent debut CD. Nice work guys, come visit the east coast some time soon!
Jason “CJSIXER” Wenderoth | 08/18/2006