The Violence Beneath is a four song EP by the Sludge act Mouth of the Architect that just barely goes over the thirty minute mark. Composed of three original tracks, one of them being a live song, as well as a cover song, it's set up about the same way as your average EP would be, and as far as the quantity of the product you get with time, it's not that bad a deal. The problem here is that The Violence Beneath is a hard, Sludge soaked Metal release that is well constructed, but can become boring after a while.
Mouth of the Architect have always felt the need to write rather long songs, and for many bands this is not a problem. For this band, however, it can sometimes lead to the tracks feeling a little drawn out regardless of how well composed they are. The two original tracks on this EP, "The Violence Beneath" and "Buried Hopes", both unfortunately suffer from this. While "The Violence Beneath" is a decent track, it just lacks a real bite to it, causing the song to become rather boring after a few spins, as well as can sometimes become rather repetitive. The same can be said for "Buried Hopes", however this song is the better of the two thanks to how the guitars are being performed to create a very haunting, trance-like sound for the song that works great against the often droning drumming that appears during the song.
The live song, "Restore" is the only other enjoyable track on this release, as it does have more of a kick to the music, and it's not as overly repetative, or distorted to the point where the chords sometimes come off as noise, which winds up being one of the main drawbacks to their first two songs off this EP. This is either because of the song being live and the somewhat raw sound to the recording, or the band didn't use as much distortion to enhance some of the high pitched chords. Either way, none of these songs can really prepare you for the closing Peter Gabriel cover track "In Your Eyes", a very slow paced track that is built up pretty much exactly the same way that "Buried Hopes" is, just without as much ambience in the guitar work as the latter track includes.
All that being said, The Violence Beneath is not that bad an album, as it does have some moments in the songs that sound good, such as the aforementioned guitar ambience that really does help out the the understanding of the slow pace to the songs. While the band has some great ideas on this EP, the execution is what fails, and it appears to be mostly due to the recording quality on the guitars used, making them just lack any real bite while often being so distorted that they become rather annoying, as well as often migraine enducing. If you're a fan of this band's later material, there is no doubt you will love The Violence Beneath. Otherwise, look into this EP before you splurge on it, as it really could have done with songs being cut down a little bit, and a little more attention product-wise, to keep this album from being so stale after the initial listen.
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