Zapruder
Fall in Line

Some of you have probably heard the name Zapruder, not because of this French quintet but for another reason. A reason that you can figure out for yourself, but a thing that is a bit harder to figure though is the ever-increasing empty phrases that describe bands today from both labels and the bands themselves. This Zapruder debut album Fall in Line is a great example of a press text saying hardly anything in many words. I was a bit perplexed to know that this was apparently an album that belongs in the genre post-mathcore, and can say that it was not something I would have suspected when listening to the album itself before reading about it. Then again I am against those nutty specialisations of genres into the detail because what is really the difference between mathcore, hardcore, metalcore and any other form of core? The answer is practically nothing, it is not like the difference between AOR and black metal or even between heavy metal and power metal. It is just silly.

And it gets more silly: ”From the moment Zapruder was formed they have relentlessly tried to find the perfect balance between the complexity of mathcore, the crazyness of noise, the intoxicating atmospheres of post-rock and a rock'n'roll groove.” Yes, I can see that, or maybe not as it says as much as: ”mitä helvettiä minä puhun paskaa”. The quote from the press text led to some stuff about the debut EP and then in the next paragraph they get to this album: ”The opus achieves a higher level of coherence, yet the artistic core remains a fascination for variety, versatility and surprise” sure it does and is, whatever that means. It says nothing, kind of like saying: ”paljon lunta mutta ei taskulamppu” it means as much to me when describing this album. I always listen to an album before reading anything about it and sometimes you just have to shake your head. They could have written about what these guys have released and where they are coming from, perhaps which bands inspired them and some highlights in their career, and then write that they are a metalcore band because that is what they are, they make metalcore or hardcore if you prefer less specialised genre descriptions.

This is metalcore with some added complexity, not much but there are melodic parts which break off the hardcore roaring and that stuff. Especially in the ending part but also once or twice during the first seven tracks, like in Delusion Junction for instance. The production is quite good even though I would have toned down the hardcore stuff a bit as the singer is not very good. The clean vocals are good and has a great feel to it, the sound is modern and typical of the genre. They don’t strike me as a band that differ much from the core of the genre, they do their heavy stuff, change tempo a bit and then do the same again. The last two tracks show a bit of difference though, so maybe they do have something.

Much of the albums 42 minutes are really poor, dreary and repetitive hardcore stuff that many has done before and many has done it a lot better and more interesting without labelling themselves as post-mathcore. They have a cooler cover artwork than what they deliver in terms of music. Overall I was not impressed when hearing this, not before I got to the end and a gorilla started throwing barrels at me… or I heard some really good music for a change. I like the last two tracks, but that is the only thing I find even remotely good on the album, the rest is completely uninteresting.

Now, I am not really a fan of hardcore so people who do might see it somewhat differently and fair play to them as they might have something they like in this. But overall I think this album is about as interesting as reading the buzzwords about it, which means there isn’t much of consequence there. I keep the ending with me and summarises this review in the most logical way I can think of: melko tylsä ​​albumi pelasti kaunis viimeistely. And a question: why is there no google translate from bullshit to english or swedish?

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