Track Listing:
01. Adding Insult to Injury
02. A Day of Rest
03. Sweet Dystopia
04. So Below
05. I Think About Hurting More Than Your Feelings
06. Legacy of Disgrace
07. Lies, Deceit and Arrogance
08. Emancipation
09. Did You Swallow for That?

Rated:
8.5 / 10

Total Play Time:
32:18

Band's Webpage

I think almost anybody that knows anything about underground music knows that the US northeast, primarily Massachusetts and Connecticut, were a hotbed for hardcore. A love for old-school thrash and Gothenburg death inspired many bands to push the boundaries of the music into more metallic arenas and helped spawn the sound that we now affectionately term as “metalcore”. There are also a number of bands that are taking that sound and incorporating some tech-death elements, further pushing those boundaries and for a handful of bands, it’s made them immensely popular. For some bands, no matter how much metal they meld into their sound, they just sound too ‘core for most metalheads. End-Time Illusion falls into this category.

Formed as a three piece in 2002, the band quickly found themselves playing on the same bills as larger acts such as Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall. With their love for all thing technical, ETI got a bit restless and found it necessary to enlist a second guitarist and bass player. Now a five-piece, ETI released “So Below” and were now opening up for death metal legends Cryptopsy and Suffocation.

I suppose you could liken ETI’s sound to a crossbreed of full out and out hardcore and tech bands like Meshuggah. The band’s website says it has elements of pitcore, though I really have no idea what that is, and truthfully, it sounds pretty ridiculous. Let’s just say they’re some form of technical hardcore. The problem for me reviewing this disc is that I’m not really fond of either the new “tech for the sake of tech” movement or hardcore. In fact every time I walk past a Hot Topic store and hear some scene kid say “This band is way more technical than that band…”, I just wanna smash them over the head with an old thrash record. To me, technical means nothing if the music sucks.

Having said that, “So below” is full of solid musicianship and well written songs. You can tell that these guys are well versed in all things brutal and technical, as “Adding Insult to Injury” opens up with a killer guitar riff and a lightning fast blastbeat. But, then come the hardcore vocals, a breakdown, and that’s where they lost me. They didn’t lose me completely as I found plenty more to be impressed with. There were plenty of other times throughout “So Below” that I found myself in awe of the skillful musicianship of this band as they weaved through time-change after time-change, from thrash to hardcore, all the time sounding cohesive and completely in sync as a band. I also found the production on this disc to be outstanding. Bands that play highly technical music like this should always have albums that sound crystal clear. ETI should definitely thank Jim Morris at Morrisound for giving this album an incredible production job while at the same time not rendering the music lifeless by overproducing it.

In all honesty, even though I’m not a real big fan of this type of music, I did find “So Below” to be an enjoyable listen. Hell I even caught myself nodding my head a few times. At this point, I’m not really sure what to say. This album is a little to ‘core for me, but a little too metal to be ‘core. If that sounds like your thing, then give “So Below” a listen. Hell, these guys just might be the next band from this genre to break, or at least they probably should be.