Band: Straight Line Stitch
Album: When Skies Wash Ashore
Genre: Metal
Label: Koch

Tracks:
1. Never See The Day
2. Promise Me
3. Taste of Ashes
4. Eucharist
5. Black Veil
6. Adult Cinema
7. What You Can Do To Me
8. Seneca Tragedy
9. World Made Flesh
10. Yesterday’s Gone

When I first started listening to Straight Line Stitch’s new album, When Skies Wash Ashore, I didn’t think it was that bad. I was thinking throughout my first listen, “alrigh,t this is pretty decent,” but that changed. One thing I really liked about this record was that the vocals went from normal singing to screaming and back to normal singing and I thought that was really cool…for about the first minute I listened to them, but throughout the entire cd they continue to do this and I am going to be completely honest, It gets really annoying and tiring.

There isn’t very much variety on this album at all, it goes from singing to screaming to singing over and over again. The guitar work is average and the drummer doesn’t stand out too much either. They put all of the emphasis all on the vocals, which, like I said, gets really annoying as the album plays out. As far as talent it’s all found within the vocals, which…well…the singing parts are pretty good, but the screaming just does nothing for me.

Now with that being said, when I got to the end of the album, luckily I came across two pretty decent tracks;“Seneca Tragedy” and “World Made Flesh”. “Seneca Tragedy was pretty good because unlike most of the other tracks on this album they decided to cut the screams and just went in with clean vocals which were quite solid. This song was actually mildly catchy, they had alright lyrics and it was more hard rock based then it was metal, which is in my opinion a lot better style for the band to play. This is really the only track where the vocals solid throughout the whole song. “World Made Flesh” is a decent song as well. It starts off really strong and actually gives you high hopes for the rest of the song. Instrumentally I would say this is the best song. The vocals still get annoying on this song, but instrumentally, it’s good, and at the parts where she decides to actually sing it pretty okay.

It ends on a mellow track entitled, “Yesterday’s Gone,” which is a complete failure. It’s extremely dull and the vocals aren’t full of much, if any, energy. It’s acoustic, which atleast gives the album a little bit of variety, but it’s not exactly good or very original. The most this song will accomplish is putting you to sleep, so if you want a good bore check out this song. It’s really a letdown because closing tracks can usually save an album, but this just nails the coffin closed.

This album is nothing special at all. It’s more than a bit average and there’s not much to it. I would not recommend buying this album right away, but maybe buy, “Seneca Tragedy,” off iTunes. Other then that, this album is a waste. The singer is the only one in the band that really shows any true talent on the album so if you like sweet guitar riffs, crashing drums, and a tight bass line…this band may not have what you are looking for.

*Written By: Danny Weiss*
GRADE: 3/10

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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