Chronographs - 'The Outhouse Sessions' (self released) 4/5

Chronographs are a young five piece 'technical hardcore' outfit, originally from Worcester but now working out of the London area. They have only been together a year or so and have issued this three track ep whilst working on their first 'official' release that is due later this year.

Now as debut demo ep's goes this is quite impressive. There's no nonsense on show here, the opener Tides cuts in with a tasty bit of mid tempo brutality with a riff that tips a hat to Rage Against the Machine and features a couple of nice urgent and angsty melodic sections to provide a little light and shade. Dutch Courage is a better than average metal core workout; whilst the real killer cut is the closer Toska. A brutal and jagged interplay of machine gun rhythms, twisted riffs and angry post screamo vocals that resolves into a sublime climax that to my ears sounds like Periphery minus the self indulgence.

Over all this is a strong debut and one that shows great promise for the future.

For fans of... Screaming Eyes, The Hotel Ambush, Somnus, Aliases, etc....

This ep can be downloaded for free from here... http://chronographs.bandcamp.com/album/outhouse-sessions