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Cinema Sleep: Make Your Way EP

Modern (Melodic) Hard Rock/Metal

3.5/5.0

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Stand By Records
by Craig Hartranft,  03.27.2013

Having signed to Stand By Records, Cincinnati's Cinema Sleep gets the proper release of their first EP Make Your Way. This five man band falls into the larger category of modern melodic hard rock or metal, but to get more specific requires peeling away the layers.

The arrangements are rather large, even dense. Every element, from rhythm section to vocal arrangements to big guitar riffs and solos, across every song are inherently BIG. Yet, Cinema Sleep melds them together in such a way to make them both curious and entertaining. And they do this in about three minutes for every song. If anything they're concise in their compositions. At times, you want to say that Cinema Sleep is some post-hardcore exaggeration, but even that seems limiting.

Frankly, they seem to want have their feet in both past and present, both melodic and traditional hard rock or metal and the current harshness of the modern cousins. This House and the single The Response (listen above) come with this approach. Some, like myself, who find modern metal and rock garishly drenched in harshness and hardcore, will find these songs persuasive and exemptions from common modern fare. But Light to Shadows and In Dreams not so much. They're good in parts, like the guitar solo and drumming in the former, but the vocals get a bit too screamo. Then there's Take Me Home which sounds like a cross between Three Days Grace and Nickelback; it's rather soaring and accessible. I wonder why it wasn't chosen for a single. In the end, Cinema Sleep's Make Your Way offers some curious and entertaining modern melodic hard rock and metal, perhaps even enough to set them apart from the mainstream, but probably not. And that would be a shame: check them out.

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Cinema Sleep's Make Your Way offers some curious and entertaining modern melodic hard rock and metal, perhaps even enough to set them apart from the mainstream, but probably not.

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Three years have passed since Sweden's Cruzh dropped their second long-player, Tropical Thunder, also introducing their new singer, Alex Waghorn. Now the band returns with The Jungle Revolution ... [ Read More ]