Unprocessed – ‘Covenant’ (Album Review)
With so many competitors vying for space behind the djent frontlines still dominated by Tesseract, Animals As Leaders, and of course Periphery, the standards by which they will inevitably be judged are becoming more stringent all the time. Having heard advance track Haven, I went into Convenant hyped up and excited to see what Unprocessed were going to bring to the table.
“Haven though…”
Haven is a goddamn beast. It crams in everything you’d want to hear from a djent track, from tasty muted notes through to some absolutely top-drawer tapping that brought Tosin Abasi to mind. The only downside to the whole thing is the presence of Spencer Sotelo wannabe vocals that really made me wish that Unprocessed had placed their focus on finding their own voice, rather than trying to directly clone an existing one.
Third track Ghilan is also promising, coming complete with inventive riffing fuelled by hyperconcentrated aggression. Beyond this point, though, there’s little on offer here that isn’t already being done better elsewhere. The rest of Covenant is frankly either derivative or generic – although there are a few standout riffs to be found beyond those early cuts.
As promising as it is, Covenant induces Djent Fatigue early on. Unprocessed are yet another band who have the potential to pull off a masterpiece, but seem to currently be stuck playing copycats and trying to catch up with a certain handful of bands who made names for themselves by pushing boundaries, not just following in others’ footsteps.
Still, Haven though…
LTK RATING: 70%
Pre-order Covenant (out April 13) on iTunes.
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