Kyler
Swagger

German band Kyler seems to be an internally interesting band for the germans only as every piece of info I have found about this album is in german which is not fair of the rest of us (although I know some german so I can make much out of it). It is their debut album we are dealing with and it is named Swagger and it seems to be of little interest for all non-german speaking media. It is an album that is said to be some redneck metal or something like that, all I know that it will possibly be metalcore since it sounds a bit like the band Unhale which I reviewed yesterday.

There are differences though as the music which in Kyler’s case has a lot more groove in it, you could if you want to describe it as metalcore with some groovier rhythms. The vocals are mostly growled or spat out or whichever term is suitable for that kind of sining. The production is nothing spectacular and it sounds alright all the way through but there is no much in the sense of adventure or something similar. The album is quite long with a playing time of over 50 minutes which aren’t really that varied and that is producing some yawning in the longer runs.

And the album does feel a bit like Kyler stops short of their potential and instead the album becomes a good album that doesn’t quite lift off or play on the good sides of what they do. I think they do what they do okay but it leaves with that nagging feeling that there should have been more coming from this album but for whichever reason we just got a good album when we should have gotten an incredible album. It is also a bit difficult to put the real sensation about this album in words but it is a good album that has something amiss.

I think that the weak point of this album is the lack of adventure, the lack of daring to try to use their groovy sound to something more interesting and exciting.

In the end we can say that this is a rather good metalcore album and that it pushes enough buttons to appeal to its target audience but not enough to really challenge the best. Swagger is a good debut and it promises a lot for this band, maybe they will succeed in a future album, this one is good but it is not that good...

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