Vanity

Eighteen Visions have been promising to deliver an album that glistens as well as it growls, rocks as hard as it punches and sounds as good as the band looks. Vanity is that album, distilling the Orange County mob's convoluted, technical Metalcore of yore into blisteringly powerful yet melodiously catchy and instantly memorable songs. The title itself is a playful jab at the band's critics, with a variety of deeper layers behind it that become apparent as the album unfolds. Vanity still pummels and shreds enough to get a Hatebreed audience dancing, but it swings and grooves simultaneously, like the death n' roll of The Haunted or Entombed, and tastes as somberly bittersweet as the Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains or even the Doors. This album will turn heads - invigorating old fans, inviting new ones aboard, changing indifference to enthusiasm and playfully, smugly kissing the unbelievers on the cheek.