Review Summary: Despite some minor flaws, The Room Colored Charlatan's sophomore effort is a great addition to the band's catalog, and manages to stick out a bit compared to their contemporaries.
Since the late 2000’s, there’s been a large number of “Sumeriancore” bands garnering attention around the Internet. Most, if not all of these bands derive their sound primarily from technical deathcore/metalcore bands such as The Faceless, Veil of Maya, and The Contortionist. Consequently, finding a solid, memorable record is made both easier by the simplicity of web browsing, but more difficult by the colossal mass of “djent” bands floating around music-sharing sites. Back in 2012, a central Indiana band by the name of The Room Colored Charlatan released their debut, “Between Mirrors: The Quantum Immortality”, a solid but somewhat uninspired effort. Now, with their sophomore release, The Room Colored Charlatan explores some new territory and creates a more focused release that manages to steer the band in the right direction, though with a few missteps here and there.
Perhaps the most stand-out feature of this album is the inclusion of more progressive and keyboard elements. These help to create an atmosphere and lead up to the riffs rather than rushing in head-on to create a mindless chugfest. Speaking of riffs, the guitar work is surprisingly impressive for a band with only two albums under their belt. The leads help to balance out the chugs and assist in building up the atmosphere alongside the keyboards. The drumming sticks out as well, with a nice mix of traditional progressive/metalcore fills and a tone that doesn’t sound incredibly obnoxious like most bands. Production and mixing work is superb, and manages to sound clear and top-notch without going overboard, which helps to maintain some of the much-needed grit of metal alongside the careful compositions of traditional prog.
Unfortunately, the vocals are uninteresting and sound awfully weak when compared to some of the fairly above average lyrical content. The singer never manages to go beyond a generic death growl and occasional scream every now and then, with clean singing being used very sparingly, which is a shame, since most of the other elements fit in pretty well. And despite the unique keyboard and electronic sections, the band still does sound a little bit too much like The Contortionist or TesseracT, although the track “Atlas Artifact” does stand out a bit.
While not by any means a superb or even excellent album, The Room Colored Charlatan does create a great and immersive experience with their sophomore effort, and it is evident that the band has plenty of potential to stick out from their peers. Hopefully with their next release, they will be able to completely differentiate themselves from the rest of the monotone “djent” scene.
