Lockjaw seems to have invested heavily in European bands recently and Germany’s Ashes of Pompeii are the latest to release a CD on the label. They remind me a bit of early A Static Lullaby, which is both good and bad. Good because ASL’s first record was actually quite good, but bad because that album came out four years ago-ish and now sounds incredibly dated. Ashes of Pompeii suffer from a similar problem – they do what they do quite well, but their sound comes across as old and tired and, as a result, the album gets a little dull and repetitive over 11 tracks.
‘Collapse/Collide’ is possibly the band’s best song, but where they fall down is that every song follows a similar pattern – extended guitar intro – a la Thursday in places – and then a sung vocal followed by breakdown and screams. It’s formulaic and a little rigid and when the band follow this style the songs come across as tired. When they mix it up a little they do better – the aforementioned track doesn’t quite hit the right notes, but the fact there’s singing rather than heavy screaming suits the band so much better. There’s still room for improvement, but Ashes For Pompeii aren’t too bad for a band influenced so heavily by bands from 5 years ago.