EP review: President – King of Terrors

By DAN SOUTHALL

MASKED bands have been having a revival in the last couple of years, at least in the UK. From everyone’s nu favourite boring show Sleep Token to strange nu metallers Black and Gold, now President have joined the fray: another “mystery” band that has seemingly sprung up from nowhere, ready to grab the ears of those unsure if heavy music is for them.

Crashing somewhere between Deftones at their poppiest and your average angry metalcore band, ‘In The Name Of The Father” does a great job of setting up something interesting and refreshing whilst still feeling like that comfortable t-shirt you have in the back of the cupboard.

Then come the changes.

The heavy vocals make way for heavily Autotuned rock vocals, while the riffs stay super crunchy for “Fearless”. Think of what Bring Me The Horizon have become slowly over the years and here you are, without whatever energy BMTH still manage to wring out of even their most boring tracks. The descent bottoms out on the overly sugary, non-heavy friendly and incorrectly titled “RAGE” that, no matter how much I tried to listen to it, always had me reaching for the skip button.

Despite the over friendly nature of the previous track the band manage to get the heavy back on follow up “Destroy Me”, bringing back the Deftones-core and screamed refrains. “Get me out of here” will surely be the next pit anthem of your non-metal loving significant other in no time.

From here the EP fizzles, whimpers and occasionally lashes out to a close through more pitch shifted Autotuned vocals and the odd crunchy riff set to keep people arguing over exactly what genre or genres the band are covering, much like Sleep Token, to whom they are rightly being compared.

There is potentiallfor this group to notch up the heavy to a smaller but wide appeal. There is also room to kick the gateway down and go full pop metal and keep your significant other happy while you choke on another beer waiting for your turn to play something on the stereo.