HEROD, the ancient Judaic king (now relocated to Buffalo, NY) has calculated a revival of professional, commercial heavy metal for our day and age. Originally a metalcore band, they have admirably shed the fake anger and backwards baseball caps. But the occasional screamo vocals and jagged songwriting angles interposing MAIDEN leads with PANTERA "riffs" gleam in the dark corners of this otherwise promising EP. Famous (?) vocalist Jason Russo croons and wails the right notes, an emphatic pop metal vocal of complex, implicative melodies familiar to listeners of newer progressive metal such as the failed QUEENSRYCHE albums. The varied guitar melodies occasionally grasp the romantic, in the most gothic sense; a sequence of moods oriented to bring across feelings of solitude and reaching out to the vastness of cosmos, an almost selfish melodrama in the grips of teenage fears of abandonment. It has a bit of the bland taste of modern USA metal, but contains catchier and more emotionally stirring songwriting than the whole catalogue of AS I LAY DYING or whatever the scene kids quote endlessly on their Myspace pages.

- Devamitra

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/herod

RELATED ITEMS: HEROD - "Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight", 2006