Unjust - 'Glow' (Copro)
2/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Who'd have thunk it? To coin a phrase (and, don't get too excited, it's not a great one), 'Glow' sees the arrival of 'post nu-metal'. And whether it's because that will make your blood curdle or see your devil-horned hands reach for the sky whilst your mullet attempts to headbutt your knees, it's something that should incite fear into the soul.
Why? Because that's metal's job, isn't it - to stir anger, resentment, a release for some of the inner demons of the soul? In this respect, Unjust deserve praise and blame in equal measure. Their relatively new, distinctive branch of metal, with nothing of the 'nu' about it apart from the knack for a catchy hook and the possibility of a huge audience of adolescent make-up enthusiasts, is a progression for a genre that needs it more than most. It takes cues from where the Deftones get it right and makes notes of the pitfalls of where Linkin Park get it quite so wrong. It develops, but doesn't let go of the rulebook. Those guidelines can be quite profitable, you know.
And mark these words - this stuff could be lapped up in its thousands, especially under the proviso Unjust are a bunch of pretty boy, 'CD:UK'-fodder types. If so, they're in the money. If not, then the music itself is rocking, but inoffensive enough to garner a rather wide audience off its own back.
Of the material... they do the piano-led power-ballad on 'Falling'; the killer-chorus on 'Way Out'; and find time to get seriously heavy on 'Throwin' Pennies'. Elsewhere, they can harmonise beautifully ('Closure'), while master the chugging stop-start tactic ('Myron'). They've spread their net far and wide, and are waiting for the catch of plentiful listeners.
Yes, seemingly, it's as if there was a robust checklist of things to accomplish, nuances that would fall favourably with 'the masses', and all boxes are indeed filled adequately. But there quite clearly wasn't a box for light-heartedness; it's a moody little record throughout, conveniently designed in such a way that its sadness is quite likely be sold to, and sit comfortably with, as many people as possible.
So the problem (yes, you could sense one lurking, couldn't you?) is in part to do with just that. When 'Glow' is upset, it doesn't rage - it sulks. It sounds like it could fume quite convincingly, but getting a glimpse at this side of Unjust is difficult when you're being suffocated by the sheer amount of studio polish that the record comes bedecked in. As such, emotion struggles for breath too many times, and the sheen wins out.
The best feeling a part of the album leaves you with arrives in the shape of 'Naming The Monster', a noisy racket that urges you to question quite what they were thinking of in the composition stages. This isn't to its detriment - this unsettling confusion and intrigue is something a more generous helping of elsewhere would only have worked to 'Glow's benefit. Sadly, as it is, you go away with a feeling of an accomplished album, a solid album even, but ultimately an unexciting one. Tentative steps to something much more interesting it may well be. What's for sure, this isn't quite the final destination.
Artists in this article: Unjust
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