Josiah

Item: Verona
Author: Ben Bishop

Verona

(2004)

Reviewed by Ben Bishop

Discogs Bandcamp

Label Indie Vision MusicDecapolisJuly 2004

hardcore melodic hardcore metalcore

Josiah harken back to bands like Disembodied and Focal Point. Their raw, enthusiastic jams incorporate a grab bag of old school hardcore tactics including everything from gang-of-sailors group vocals, to using fourteen different breakdowns in one song, to what's seemingly an intentionally low end, raw production value.

And it works for them. Although they're not breaking the mold the group's obvious love of their roots and ability to wear their spiritual agenda on their sleeves while putting out a sound that's at least par for the course lends them a certain credibility. Still, there's nothing REALLY new here. The cowbell on "Harley Quinn" got a rise out of me, a song which changes not only time signatures but moods and guitar tones more often than Elton John changes costumes backstage, and the obligatory ambient mood track simply titled "Interlude" does a good job of evoking ambiguous weirdness being comprised mainly of a clip of what sounds eerily like a Fiat crashing into a hedgerow.

Other than that the album is comprised of pretty standard chung-chung-chung-chung-weet-weet hardcore breakdowns and a vocalist who's on form most of the time. Although their now-defunct label didn't hold water, Josiah may have some kind of a future. Perhaps headlining the long-awaited Strongarm reunion tour.

2/4