Band : Tears From The Sky

Album title : Boredomville II

Label : Torque Records

Distributor : Victory - Suburban

Release date : 18/03/2008 (Canada; worldwide= ?)

Release : CD

Formed in 1998, Montréal (Canada) based Tears From The Sky (actually from the suburb of Longguevil) took about a year playing a shitload of gigs on the local scene before releasing their debut demo (on it 6 tracks which inter-married the Hardcore and Metal genres), which was well-received and saw the band doing brief tours around their county Quebec.

The band then still having a strong foothold in Hardcore, a scene which is known for its norms in both passion and responsability, the band went through several unexpected line-up changes, and it's in April 2001 that the band returned with their even better-received demo EP Light, As It Were, One Of The Colours. That same year saw TFTS expand their live action field to the neighboring county of Ontario, and continued studio efforts brought positive fruit when they contibuted the song For The Decline Of Emotions to the Worldwide European Hardcore compilation CD on European label Nightmare Records. With an increased touring schedule they continuously made new fans, and that era of the band was closed in crescendo when new song "The Next Few Days" got featured on the now legendary 2002 51.4.50 MontréalHardcore compilation. Around that time new line-up changes occured, and the band retreated into their rehearsal room for a while to advance their appraoch to songwriting with the inclusion of a wider array of influences brought about by the new line-up.

With additional influences including but not limited to European Death Metal, Southern Rock, and World Music, the band, now fronted by the energetic Jean-Sébastien Racine, wrotenew songs which began making waves. Firstly with highly appreciated US label Life Sentence, who signed the band for the February 2005 release of their Power Symbol EP. More positive reactions came from Europe and the US, from whence letters of praise and admiration started coming in. Not surprisingly, the band's gigging profile was hightened, and TFTS subsequently shared stages with Beneath The Massacre on a Quebec week-end from February through May, taking out time to do an additional mini-tour of Ontario with Nora & Cancer Bats during March. The first part of September the boys again had a tour with Arise And Ruin, followed that same month (and going into October) by an Ontario/ Quebec tour with A Perfect Murder and Mi Amore. The band's increasing popularity also led to 3 of its songs getting picked to be featured on the Xbox 360 snowboard game Amped 3, and one of those ("Nailed Down") was even selected for the official soundtrack of the game, which was released in November 2006.

But before that, namely in February and the first part of March earlier the same year, the band retreated into the Wild Studio with producer Pierre Remillard (who'd already recorded with the likes of A Perfect Murder, Cryptopsy, and Gorguts to name but a few) to record their first full-length Boredomville. They followed that up with week-end headline shows in Quebec and Ontario from March through May, and continued to do week-end shows and festivals throughout the Summer and the end of the year. In early 2007, the band signed to the LostCity Industries label [started by guitarists Luc Verville (then with Aces & Eights, but also formerly of A Perfect Murder) and Carl Bouchard (A Perfect Murder & Final Word)] for a release of their debut full-length in early May 2007, the band supporting the upcoming release with another week-end tour of Ontario and Quebec from March to May, then jumping on an East Coast Canadian with Ion Dissonance during July, and attending several Quebec festivals during the rest of Summer.

November then saw the band sign with Torque Records, and as part of the deal TFTS booked time at Studio Victor to record two bonus tracks with Ion Dissonance's Antoine Lussier as producer and Yannick St-Amand (of Despised Icon) as mastering engineera month later. During February, the band took part in a video shoot for "Glory To The Failure", one of the new songs and also their new single (should start airing, even on MTV,in early May). In March the band was again touring Quebec in support of the revised album's release, and a month later the guys set out on an East Coast tour of the USA with A Stained Glass Romance and Ghost Of A Fallen Age. Somewhere along the line, a deal was cut with Victory for the worldwide release of the album outside North-America...which is how the album eventually landed on our desc!

Setting the historical facts aside and going back to the musical factor, I think that most people will agree with me when listening to the three songs (album openers "Death Requiem" and "Good Mourning Forgiveness", plus album closing "Glory To The Failure") off the album (there's also two tracks from their 2005 EP), posted at myspace.com/tfts, that TFTS have managed to combine the most exhilerating elements of Hardcore with those of several Metal genres. Among those latter the most protruding is of course Death Metal (and I guess the most likely influencial band to name would be the Progressively tinged In Flames), but occasionally (take the intro of title track "Boredomville" as most perfect example, but also try to get a whiff of "Instigator Of Crimes"), the boys also fall into a Progressive Metal style alà Iron Maiden. As far as Hardcore is concerned, that is certainly found back in the drive which is found in most of the songs, and in the vocals...at least for a portion. Because Racine is a really versatile singer, able to bend his voice from albeit Blackened screams to a Death growl, from "normal" and somewhat clean to a true Hardcore shout 'n' scream! Although I'm guessing he did all vocals on the album himself with a higher degree of coherance as goal, there àre parts where vocals occasionally overlap each other for short moments. Meaning that in live conditions at least one of the other musicians in the band will have to bring in some "backing" vocals! More "Hardcore" can be heard in the almost Pop Punky intro of "Indifference" (I mean, you might almost think you're listening to a Bad Religion track when listening to those 33 first instrumental seconds of that track). But things ain't all-out aggressive all the time: for the intro (about 75 seconds) of "My Own Demise" the guys fall into an almost Ambient calmer instrumental passage with an incredibly high emotional content, a mode to which they return in the last 30 seconds of the song. Remillard has succeeded in giving the material a bass-heavy and reverberating mix which gives the whole a real modern sound, a sound the music truly deserves!

To make clear how great this band's music is, I need to tell you that I've just come back from following a course for the job (with an ensuing exam). As the place where I needed to be for that is somewhere behind Brussels (when seen from our main city Leuven), I've had to depend on public transportation to get there...and had to do a 20-minute ride on the bike to get to the train station. While under way, I re-listened to this album (and a couple more, granted) to the point of being able to hum 'n' whistle the somewhat complex but always melodic 12 tunes (total listening time near 51 minutes) flawlessly. In other words, there is now nó element of this album's music which I haven't analized...and still I'm not getting bored from listening to any part of it! In my book, that is a sure-shot indication of greatness, and you shouldn't therefore be surprised to find Boredomville II in that "Best Albums Of 2008"-list of mine, even if móst of that album (except only for the bonus tracks) was already released last year. This version of the album only now reaching our shores justifies such a deed!

98/100

Tony.