Band:	Generation Of Vipers
Album:	Grace
Style:	Progressive hardcore
Release date:	March 01, 2005
A review by:	Herzebeth

01. Thaw
02. O Great Deceiver
03. In The Crushing Fists Of God
04. Blood In The Belly

The line between experimental rock and post-metal is actually very thin, even more when a band like Generation Of Vipers knocks you in the head. Fortunately, after a few listens, I didn't successfully figure out their genre; I did said fortunately don't check again; when a band is so versatile that you can't even figure their genre out, "fortune" is the only word that appears in my mind.

Generation Of Vipers plays a sludgy kind of hardcore with some metal overtones, kind of like Cult Of Luna and Pelican mixed with Khanate. Their music varies a lot though, so that statement is just a raw guideline to this band's sound. The atmosphere emanating from this album is what impresses me the most, the band manages to create all kind of feelings in every track wrapping this album; the varied paces build anger, rage, depression and even happiness at times.

The minimalist layout and the raw production both work perfectly well with the whole concept of Generation Of Vipers; the artwork gives you a chance to visualize whatever your brain wants to and the overall mix transforms the elegant scheme into an aggressive musical design. The songs flow in a marvelous way throughout the entire record, the band drones the riffing enough for us to catch more than just a glimpse of their design. The songwriting is marvelous as well; the four songs have different vibes and a lot of chromatic approaches, so that's a huge plus in their songwriting capabilities.

Grace is their first full-length, so their music is still a tad unpolished and a little vague in some ways, the instrumentation (Bass, Guitar and Percussion) does not allow the band to create layered structures, so, that causes them to fail in impressing the listener with intricacy or complexity. The execution is quite good as I already said, but I think they really could use a second guitarist as right now the lead guitar sounds rigid when trying to achieve multifaceted arrangements.

Overall this is a great experience for all the avant-garde seekers; I recommend you to give Grace a try, it's really easy on the ear and I can guarantee you won't be disappointed as the album will instantly grow on you after the first couple of spins.

Best Tracks: "Blood On The Belly", "In The Crushing Fists Of God"