Decent record. Just sounds like everything else. Not that that is a bad thing I just didn't see myself saying "Oh I like that," or "That is pretty cool" once during the record. Definite potential and hopefully they can mature with future releases. If you like hardcore in the vein of Between the Buried and Me then you will like this.
Originality and innovation are two things this record lacks, but if those two things are extremely important to you, you probably shouldn't be listening to hardcore. Sinai Beach is definitely one of the better new school hardcore bands around today. Plenty of the fast paced hardcore stuff that gets kids broken noses on the dance floors these days, some crunching guitars, and not to mention, for the wussy kid in you, some melodic singing. The screaming vocals are nothing spectacular, but they don't make me cringe like a great deal of them does, and the melodic parts are nothing to brag about. They're not doing anything new, but they are doing something well, because this record definitely caught my ear. If you're not into hardcore, you probably won't be into this CD, but it's still worth at least hearing a couple tracks.
I first heard about this band from an associate that doesn't like metalcore, but for the most part, strictly hardcore. So here I am, expecting something new, something that doesn't sound like the rest of the metalcore! After the ten second intro sample in "Candice", I was quickly disappointed. This first song sums up the whole album pretty much. This summary includes lots of metallic riffage, a moshing breakdown, an "emo" melodic singing part, and a lot more metal. The whole singing thing on this album doesn't work for me, sounds too forced. If you are going to have pretty singing, have it be pretty, don't have singing just to have singing. The same goes with screaming, which happens throughout the whole album, but it fits the music very well, so that is ok. My favorite track on this, "True/False", coincidentally has no stupid "emo" singing part. Keep that shitty "emo" crap to Drive-Thru records, thank you. Anyway, my favorite song has the phattest breakdown beginning at 0:39 with a great build up. The talking part right before it hits gets me in the mood, then the drums get all slow and there is lots of "jud jud". The same song has another breakdown later with this super sweet metal riffage layering over it! I lied, there is some singing in it at the end, but I just fast forward through that suckage. There is a full track with some noisy horror sample, which is the whole track titled "Awakening Of The Forgotten", what a fancy title for a boring "song". No. Don't buy this in anticipation of something new, but instead, decent cliché metalcore.
