Band: Structures
Album: All of the Above
Release Date: March 15/2010
Production: Jordan @ Sundown Studios, Guelph ON.
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Genre: Progressive Hardcore/Metal
Myspace: myspace.com/wearestructures

Album Cover

Album Back

1. Departure
2. Transitions
3. Encounter…
4. In Pursuit Of (ft. Piss Bahris of A Textbook Tragedy)
5. Still Waters

A brief about this band – Structures is formed from members of other local Toronto bands that came together. After some style changes, and progression for the better, Structures was born. Structures consists of Nick Xourafas on vocals, Spyros Georgiou on guitar, Brendan Padjasek on guitar+vocals, Spencer MacLean on bass+vocals, and Andrew McEnaney on drums.

Back to the album.

Think heavy. Okay, now think heavier. Your thought still doesn’t come near this album. All of the Above has the technicality of any big progressive metal band these days, while getting the oomph that hardcore gives. The album shows the diversity of the musicians as they switch between breakdowns and melodic guitar that will be stuck in your head for hours after.

When I received the album my mouth gaped. The EP is fantastic. The guitars are of the ‘djent’ feel (see Periphery/Born of Osiris/Veil of Maya), but not recorded in that way. At first it took a little bit for me to figure out why they didn’t head down that direction, and still in the back of my head I wonder what it would sound like that way – but I think recording the guitars the way they did was a smart move. It ultimately adds more fullness than they would have achieved with djent, thus leading to a much heavier sound. The album isn’t constant shredding and breakdowns either. There are slow rhythmic sections which show variance in their music. The drums sound fantastic, and there are some really neat patterns that you aren’t normally used to. The bass adds a lot of ballsyness. While it is not predominant (very rarely do the basses stand out in this type of music), the parts where it stands out – it really stands out. I can’t really pick out what makes the most impact as everything equally contributes to the greatness of this album.

The lyrics on the album are what are really interesting – the last lines from each song, can be taken to form a paragraph:

One day we’ll rest our heads, and you will see,
Living life in reverie could never be what you fucking thought it would be
I bet you never saw this coming.
Now here it comes…..
It’s just a matter of time.

It gives me the goosebumps every time I look over it. Whether it was intentional or not, it’s pure genius. The clean vocals (Spencer/Brendan) really add to the album – as they open up a whole new world of musical variance. Nicks vocals match the band perfectly – yells, highs and lows are all a wicked edition. Rarely do you see bands of this genre with vocalists with this much diversity.

Unfortunately it is only an EP, so after 5 songs – you’re really craving more. Transitions had been previously recorded as a single. Re-recorded and re-written, starting at the intro blew my mind. A total change, and it’s what showed me that these guys really are headed in the right direction. In Pursuit of features guest vocals by Chris Bahris (aka Piss) of A Textbook Tragedy (Distort). From about 2:25-2:35 the song totally picks up as Chris adds in his two cents, then the song picks up even more from there.

Structures definitely saved the best for last. Still Waters is by far, the best song on the whole album. From start to finish this song totally has everything you want in a song. Seriously. It even includes wicked coughing before one of the best breakdowns on the album at about 50 seconds. Two neat parts that really stand out are at 3:28 with a bit of a build up and a huge Ohhhh, followed by another excellent breakdown; and the other is at about 3:40 onward, in which the song continuously bounces back and forth between singing and screaming – a call and answer type thing.

This album is bound to put Toronto’s Structures on the map. If you’re looking for something new to put on repeat, make a note of March 15th, as I’m sure you will not be disappointed.

*UPDATE: The album release date is being pushed back to April 6th, 2010*

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Band of the Day, CD Reviews, New Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.