Realms – Echo Chamber
Release Date: 9th December 2017
Label: N/A
Realms are a 5-piece post-hardcore from Doncaster, and their debut EP, Echo Chamber, was released last year. Throughout my listens to this ~15 minute EP, I had a love-hate relationship (which started from just a mostly hate-hate one). The 4 songs on the EP have some impressive instrument work, especially on the drums, but the vocals were very hit and miss. The screaming was sometimes fantastic – such as in ‘Painted Demons‘, but other times was very poor, like the first song, ‘Hung. Drawn. Quatered‘, where it was not in time with the backing track at all and paled in comparison to the singer’s normal voice.
In this first song, the guitar work is superb, as well as the softer parts of the vocals, but it sort of falls apart. It works later in the song when it’s layered behind normal singing, but the frantic screaming doesn’t work for the most part.
Track 2, ‘Wallflower‘ starts off with an amazing instrumental – from an acoustic sounding guitar, to be joined by an electronic sounding drum, and then a jump back to the loud rock side with an amazing riff. However, it is once again soured by some unpolished screaming over a really good back track, and once again calms down into an impressive chorus.
Track 3, ‘Painted Demons‘ improves these flaws slightly, with the screaming becoming more tolerable during this song. The best part of the song, however, is the amazing guitar work throughout the song. The riffs stand out and make this easily my favourite song on the EP, only tainted by a tiny amount of poor screaming at the very start.
The final track, ‘Zealot‘, sounds very professional and reminds me of some other larger bands. The screaming is also much better in comparison to the first few songs, but the instrumental isn’t as good as track 3 (but still very good). It’s the 2nd best song on the EP, and is easily something I’d listen to again like ‘Painted Demons‘. Oh, and the breakdown at the end is very headbang-worthy!
Echo Chamber starts of quite poor and I feared for it, but the last 2 tracks made up for it with some bangers that will end up on my playlists. Realms are a band I would look forward to listening to again to see how some polish and tweaks would improve their next attempt, as I believe they have true potential to be amazing.
Recommended Track: Painted Demons
Rating: 6/10
Facebook: realmstheband
Bandcamp: realmstheband
Youtube: Realms the band