Rise of Marakara

have the toughest time reviewing material from young bands. For some reason, I feel that just because the band is young, they should have some sort of handicap in terms of review score and such. But on the other hand, if you're this young and this unprepared, you shouldn't be putting out something that is going to sound as immature as you are. Well, this is the case with the young Rise of Marakara from Chicago, IL.

Having shared the stage with an impressive array of bands, you could only imagine that this band had to be something pretty special. From seeing that they've played with One AM Radio, Kodan Armada, Textbook Traitors, Dakota/Dakota, and The Fiction, I figured this band had gotten around. But as it stands, it seems that they must be the only band in the area capable of playing as support for these shows, because I can't imagine something like this album creating a huge draw.

Right from the beginning, you hear it. Drumming that pounds away like it's the first time the drummer's ever sat behind a drum kit. It's bland, with cymbal crashes way off beat from the song, and is just generally bad. The singing is capable of leaking through your cupped hands as they attempt to block any last decibel that might make it to your eardrums. The fact that they have a terrible singer didn't stop the band as they even had him start the second song off with the most unintelligible couple words you'll ever hear, and it's not even like he's screaming. He just doesn't know how to enunciate.

It's not all bad. The guitarists have some decent ideas that, given the right band, could come across very well. But even the two guitarists have trouble playing together as it seems like they are off in time and pitch during some of the songs.

Well, here we are, at the end of the review and I still don't know how I feel about the handicap. The band wasn't around very long before they zoomed in to record this record and the song writing and musicianship suffers. At the same time, it seems this whole "screamo" thing can just be a cop out for people who don't know how to play their instruments very well. That's a whole other story for another day though.

2.3 / 10 — Shane