If I Die Today - Postcards From The Abyss

Hardcore from Italy? Who would of thunk it? Not me, that's for sure! ;-) Anyways, If I Die Today might be classified as a Hardcore band, but there's enough melody scattered throughout this release to suggest otherwise. Sure, there's lots of shredding riffs, screamed out vocals, a few occasional breakdowns and whatnot, but there's also something else going on in here, something that a lot of bands in this genre are lacking, stuff like hooks, melodies and well  written material. High energy songs like Gold Crowns, The First Storm, Ships In The Woods, Lucky Man and The End Of Everything all show that this band has a lot more to offer than just generic bullshit, although not every song on here is a rager, some like The Road To Happiness, is just a nice melodic piece of well written music. Not a breakdown or yelled out vocal in sight. Some of the stuff on here is pretty mid-paced and comes off a bit more Poppy, a little bit more Punk Rock than everything else that's on here. The production quality is excellent, everything sounds nice and crisp and LOUD, and all the songs are under 3 minutes long, which is another thing a lot of bands have forgotten about, keeping things short and sweet. It helps for people like me with short attention spans. Aggressive, Melodic, XXX and dare I say, Sophisticated? Yup! If I Die Today have put out an album that's pretty damn good and definitely worth checking out. Available from Wynona Records

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