I’m sure these guys are super-talented (some of the riffs suggest the guitarist may well be at least) but there’s no excuse for merely ripping off bands riding the wave of the current trend and trying to build a career off it. Proceed take some Thrice-esque riffs, throw in some melodic vocals and hope for the best. The problem us that the likes of ‘Treading Water’ and ‘Now Laughing’ are a bit screamo-lite.
The thing is, not only are Proceed not a patch on their US counterparts, they’re nowhere near as good as the likes of We Are The Ocean, The Blackout or Flood of Red; bands that may be a little more aggressive, but are either catchier or heavier. Proceed sound like a band fighting between two genres, pulling at both ends of the rope in a tug of war but failing to actually fall over at either end. And ultimately that’s their downfall – too weak to be a heavy band, not melodic enough to be a pop band. And when you’re a jack of all trades you tend to be a master of none.
Sadly this is painfully average and nothing to write home about at all. Either Proceed write songs with catchy choruses or they rock the fuck out – at the minute they don’t do either all that well.