Human Improvement Process – S.T.A.R.S (2011)

Advertised as blending Deathcore with dubstep and electronic elements we immediately started listening to this release to figure out how can a band make Deatchore even worse by adding our current number one ‘musical’ enemy: dubstep. To our disappointment we figured out that the band not only does not have ANY dubstep elements, but it also has very few electronic elements in their sound.

While we are not great fans of Deathcore we can recognize a good release when we listen to one and “S.T.A.R.S” is half-way there. The band has great guitar parts and superb clean vocals but everything else in-between feels too artificial and slapped together. Even the ‘dubstep’ intro that has no metal elements in it feels like a plot to appeal to a different market.

Starting off with “Ascension of Silence”, the band immediately goes into the cliché vocals, guitar riffing, and ‘brutal’ drumming. Some of the screams are actually pretty bad, but luckily the growls save some respect for this song. The clean vocals are very good indeed and we kind of liked them through the release, but with the contrasting screams they suffer. The single electronic hint in this song sounds ok, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The album title track is up next and while it has a more chaotic and faster pace than the previous one, the band sounds exactly like everybody else playing Deathcore. It does not matter how fast, how many different vocals you use, or how many breakdowns you add to a song, if you have no imagination they will all sound the same. Again the clean vocals are the ‘highlight’ of this song, but nothing else.

“Wight of Guilt” and the first half of “The Process” fly by as the first two tracks did with some sub-par solos here and there, but it only gets interesting until the clean/slow section in “The Process”. Here we see a different side of the band that should be taken advantage from in the future, rather than focusing on playing the same Deathcore segments over and over.

The closing track “The Remaining Hours” has to be our favorite of this release since it has a more Melodic Metal feel to it and there are no annoying vocals (some spoken clean ones only), and the electronic elements in this song are very nicely laid out. We have to say that this song does show some promise and hopefully the band takes this direction in the future rather than making crowd pleasing Deathcore songs.

Release: February 7th, 2011

Country: Italy