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A Never Ending Shadow is the second of two local band's albums that Caity gave me and asked me to review. I had never heard of them before, and the CD jacket demands that I check them out on Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, so to Facebook I go!

Here's some quick info on A Never Ending Shadow (PS: When picking your band name, take acronyms into account, ANES when spoken out loud sounds like anus. Also kind sounds like anus when you speak the letters out loud, too): The band is from Bangor, ME, they consist of Chris Berry (Vox/Guitar), Ryan Heartley (Bass/Guitar), Travis Mason (Drums), Jordan Kneeland (2nd Vocalist) and Thomas Crim (Guitar). They are a Postcore/Hardcore band, and claim "Godly Vocals, Epic guitars, Booming Bass.... Chuck Norris and Charlie Sheen's DREAM BAND.) That's a pretty tall order, gentlemen, so let's hope it stacks up. The quick Bio on ANES (awful, TERRIBLE acronym.) says "A Never Ending Shadow (ANES) is a Hardcore band out of Bangor, Maine. It all started with Chris Berry (Once being dubbed as "The Best Screamer Ever" by Jake Porier of Chris' former band) leaving another band and fulfilling his musical destiny. He quickly gathered a couple musicians and made the godly band complete. The band is now working on their first release. It sounds to me like it's the Chris Berry show, and I'm quite looking forward to seeing just how the "Best Screamer Ever" fulfills his "musical destiny". Let's jump in!

Track 1: Intro
Holy crap. I'm not sure if there's one singer and one screamer, or how the vocals are working out here, but the singing is off-key and the screaming is wimpy. Come on screamer, grab your nuts and scream! Above that the instrumentals are choppy and out of sync with each other, making for a bizarre experience.

Track 2: True Loves Dies Screaming
It's like the drummer has never heard the song before! I mean really it's like nobody in the band has heard the song before, but especially the drummer. He's like a good measure behind everyone else it seems. I'm assuming at this point that the screaming is done by Chris Berry, as he is the self proclaimed "Best Screamer Ever!" and I don't mean to sound like a catty bitch or anything here, but Chris, it's like when you finger-paint a picture of a flower, but it really looks like you grabbed a fistful of brownish green paint and smashed it on the paper and smeared it all around, and then you give it to your mommy and she says "That's the most beautiful flower I've ever seen!" and puts it on the fridge? It's not really the most beautiful flower, she's just saying that because telling a child "that picture looks like shit" is frowned upon. And shame on you, Jake Porier for not being honest with your friend!

Track 3: The Darkest Times
Once again, nobody is in sync with each other, nobody has any idea what on earth is going on, and the vocals- Nope. You know what? Nope.

I'm gonna mercy rule myself here! Technically in order to mercy rule at least half of the tracks on the album have to be no good. But I'm going to mercy rule early on this sucker, because I can already tell that nothing good is going to come out of this review! I'm gonna look like a jerk, ANES (GOD DAMNIT THAT IS A TERRIBLE ACRONYM!) is going to come off in a not-so-great-light here, and I'm only three tracks into a ten track album, and I want to die. So mercy rule is being invoked here, and I'm going to wrap this sucker up!

A Never Ending Shadow is one of those bands that really believe that they have something special going on, because everyone (friends and family) tells them so. But taking the word of friends and family is the easiest way to tank your band, because they are never ever honest with you. Friends and Family want to save your feelings, so they'll sugarcoat everything. I don't give a crap about your feelings, so I'm going to give it to you straight: the first three tracks of this album are nearly un-listenable. Nothing is together, or in tune, and the screaming is just brutally awful. I love hardcore music, I love screamo and thrashcore, all of that shit, I am into it! This is not hardcore music. This seems like a bunch of (I'm guessing at the ages) high schoolers, who think it would bring their "cool points" up if they were in a hardcore band, so they slam on instruments, vomit shitty lyrics into a microphone in faux-screaming style, high-five each other and argue about who gets to ask Cyndi to the prom.

Don't get me wrong, I've heard some killer bands come out of high schools, there are some phenomenally talented young kids out there, but this band is not one of them. I'm sorry to be so harsh ANE-.... A Never Ending Shadow.... but sometimes we gotta hear it straight, you know? Your flower looks like shit.

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