For a while now, Aftermath have kept a fairly low profile in the Sydney scene, well I suppose there’s not much room here for a big profile, but you know what I mean. My point is, these cats needn’t worry about it anymore as the release of Their Legacy, Your Burden has seen them, at a rapid pace, scale the base of the metal mountain, which may not be as high up as some similar acts, but it’s certainly high enough to make some of them peer over their shoulders nervously.
The EP starts off with an awesome sound-byte from the 90’s classic Con Air. Given my undying love for that film, my opinion of the following tracks has been tainted. But before I could look away, and before Steve Buscemi could finish saying “Happiness for that man hurts”, boom, pow right in the kisser, the real Aftermath begins.
Their Legacy, Your Burden – obviously the title track smoothly kicks in. To some idiot it would just sound like noise, but for people who live for this shit, it’s almost like a jack-in-the-box. All of a sudden, the violent drums, dark-scaled guitar, and crispy-as vocals come out of nowhere, all working off each other so seamlessly that the overall sound you will hear is the sound of a band who have their shit together, and it will make you want to bang your fucking head.
As the album continues, the band seem to fall victim to same-song-syndrome, where you’re not 100% sure if it’s the start of a new song, or the first song is just real long. Though Follower is sure to snap you out of whatever trance you’ve fallen into, even a Facebook trance. The swelling feedback doesn’t prepare you at all for the drop. The song seems to even keep building past that point, throwing everything they’ve got. If this was their attempt at epicness, they nailed it.
The EP finishes with Revenge A.D, a perfect example of a band thinking ‘well fuck, If you haven’t been impressed yet, you will be’. Revenge A.D has some of the biggest riffs off the EP. The guitars are very playful and belt out an almost Parkway drive-esque melody over the vocals. And then Bang, it’s done. The sudden silence as the EP stops is almost a shock. Where did all the noise go? I don’t like this peacefulness, I’ll just listen to it from the top.
