  
4 piece American Deathcore act Veil of Maya have
been kicking around for 8 years now and are just
about to drop their latest studio album “Eclipse”.
I’ll begin by admitting that when I saw
that the CD had the “deathcore” genre
classification I had made a premature judgement
in regards to how I thought it would sound and
wasn’t really left with much hope or excitement,
I mean when you’ve got bands like Job For
A Cowboy, Suicide Silenceand Whitechapel all sporting
the same label then it doesn’t really lead
me to believe much else.
Fortunately I’ve always been able to keep
my judgements aside and listen to albums with
a clear mind. Good job that I did as well because
I find myself thoroughly enjoying the album more
every time I listen to it. I wasn’t entirely
wrong with my prejudice the usual techniques and
trademark writing styles are all present; heavy
bassy breakdowns, extremely deep growls, drops
and what have you, but not all is what it seems.
There’s and underlying melody, some melodic
guitar work and keyboards giving it another level,
prime example being “Winter is Coming Soon”
where the chorus’s are definitely more on
the metalcore side of the scale with a much less
chaotic structure.
That track was definitely a gateway song to the
rest of the album, after indulging on that one
a few times I found myself getting into more of
the aggressive genre appropriate ones on the album
like “Divide Paths” and“Punisher”
which can definitely be classed under the deathcore
label. The whole thing definitely appears to have
had extreme consideration in its production and
writing; “Vicious Circles” has a piano
interlude, “The Glass Slide” has a
really atmospheric musical backing where as“Numerical
Scheme” has a backing that can be quite
ominous at times.
All in all I think the band have tried to take
the music they love and adapt it into something
that could be universally appreciated with use
of atmospheric backing and melody. Kind of breaks
down the stereotypes of deathcore not being a
skilful genre of music because this album is a
beautiful piece of work but would still rupture
your eardrums and make children piss their pants.
4.5/5
Review by James Webb
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