River Becomes Ocean, A Motion Paralysed - album review

But to write them off as 'just another' would be grossly unfair.

Dig a little deeper and listen to their music and there is something else at play here.

They haven't just listened to Asking Alexandria, Bring Me The Horizon or Sleeping With Sirens and said 'right, that's us'. They've taken elements of the scene before them and melded them with their vision of how a film score would sound encompassing post hardcore and classical music elements.

The result on this, their debut album, isn't a finished product or mesmerising, but the idea sticks a solid ice pick into the cliff face and plants a seed of great ideas to come if they are given a chance to expand on them.

They have had people sit up and take notice. Liam Cormier, lead singer of Canadian hardcore mainstays Cancer Bats, guests on the track Silence Means Nothing. This is one of the more ferocious efforts here, as you'd expect. Cormier adds gravel to the smooth, swooping instrumentals as the epic wall of sound is constructed around him.

Big sounds are the record's staple. After the brief, hushed instrumental opening named after their hometown, we are slapped in the face by the heavy-hitting percussion and choral backing vocals of This hell Is Heaven Sent. This is where the heavier and classical sides of their influences connect. It's like the backing music to a dramatisation of the career of Evanescence.

There's some big finales to swallow, too. Apart, Face You and You Said all stomp off into the sunset with big guitar riffs overflowing.

But a lot of what is here starts to sound a little methodical, and one track sounds a little like another after a while.

It won't be remembered as a debut to blow you out of the water. But it is a foundation to build upon. Not every band makes you begin to picture a second record straight away, let's hope they are given that opportunity to show us something really big.

Rating: 6/10

River Becomes Ocean will play Birmingham's Subside Bar in Digbeth on February 5