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Light This City: The Hero Cycle (2010 Reissue) Melodic Death Metal, Metalcore Reflections of Ruin Records, Prosthetic Records (2010) September 5th, 2003
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Review
The debut Light This City album, The Hero Cycle, is an album that didn't receive much attention at the time due to the label it came out on. This is actually a little disheartening as this is actually a pretty good release that shows great promise for this band. Sadly, at the time of writing this review, the band has split up with only four full length releases under their belt. The Hero Cycle showcases the band's full potential, even if it requires a little adjustment by the listener to truly enjoy. First and foremost, the female vocalist on this release is definately an acquired taste. At first, the vocals will be enough to aggrivate you into putting the album down without even so much of a second thought as to if it picks up any or not after the first track. As you progress through the album and become a little more adjusted to the vocals, you'll start to see that this release is nowhere near as bad as you would prematurely think. Infact the music on here is very well done and better then some of the more "important" Melodic Death records being issued at the time. "Apostate" is a great song to start the album off with, but it isn't until "Picture: Start" that you begin to get a sense of what the band is capable of through the use of heavy and stand out guitar riffs that add to the catchy melodic aspect of the music. These guitars can also give the tracks a bit of a Punk influence, such as on "Laid To Rest". The Hero Cycle also features a cover of the At The Gates classic "Cold", which is pretty accurate to the original with one exception. The vocals done nicely, but there are moments where you want the vocalist to do more, such as emphasize certain aspects the original song has, but either doesn't or simply can't. No matter how many times you listen to it, those moments are going to bug you constantly, especially if you're a fan of the band or have heard that song at least once in your life. If you haven't noticed by now that the vocals could have used a little more work, it's at this point that it'll start to show, as well as some of the traditional Melodic Death Metal guitar hooks. While some of these are typical, like those used on "Sierra" and the hollow-sounding Punk bridge the band utilizes, the band still manages to pull them off right and they work with the music, so they aren't too bad. Sadly, it's at the point of the track "Sierra" where the album starts to go downhill. While the album start off promising, the aforementioned Punk riffs that appear in some of the tracks start to really show up at this point and counter the flow of the album. Tracks like "Picture: Start" and "Give Up" are tracks that will get your fists pounding into the air, but then you have tracks like "Sierra" with it's heavy punk influence, and the track "The Weight of Glory" that can't seem to make up whether it wants to be a good Melodic Death Metal track, or a Punk track. Either way you'll have no idea whether you want to mosh or two step with it, or even start dancing when the rather weak breakdown kicks in. It's also odd since these follow immediately after the cover of "Cold" with the track "Laid to Rest", another Punk heavy track that sounds off. Aside the song "Next to Godliness" to close out the album, which really isn't that great a track to begin with, the ending is really mixed musically and actually rather lame compared to the intensity brought on the first half. 2010 Reissue: It's only be a little more then six years since the original version of this CD was released, so the only real reason to reissue this aside money for the label would be to make it easier for the fans to obtain the band's debut album, which has been out of print for a good while now. This release makes the entire Light This City catalogue available through this label as well. Given the quality of the release, there is no need to remaster it, aside maybe tweaking the vocals a bit if possible, and the lack of bonus material and any information of b-sides or demo tracks being nonexistant probably means there was nothing to add to this anyhow, even if the label wanted to. Aside some better artwork, the only reason to buy this version would be if you don't already own this album. When you break it down, the album has some good tracks, but the latter chunk of the album is nowhere near as good as when it starts. A lot of potential is shown on this release, it's just clear that the band members brought in their own influences into the music as they wrote, and tried to make it all fit and work together in harmony, only to have it sound clustered, jumping from one style to another. The Hero Cycle is worth checking out, but for the most part only the first half. Once you become a little more accepting of the female vocals, the latter half may be something you'll want to invest time in to see if you like the creation of Punk and Melodic Death smashed together in a very chunky way, but the only ones that will really stick will be the first four and, mostly due to memories and a very close performance of it, the At The Gates cover track "Cold".
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