The Restitution - Waves

In the ever broadening subgenre of metalcore there is a huge divide between radio friendly cookie cutter bands, and progressive/experimental bands. Bands like Norma Jean and Oh, Sleeper cut their teeth pushing the genre to darker tones and all over the map playing, collections of noise and rhythms that when put together make wonderfully energetic music that’s unafraid to give the listener a wild ride. LA based band The Restitution are doing their best to further that progressive push. Waves is a swinging thundering giant, fighting for your attention and once it has that it does everything it can to keep you guessing what comes next. The album flows very well and the strong writing keeps things from falling into a lull.

To briefly go back to the side of metalcore that’s radio friendly, if you’ve spent any time in that side of things you’ll likely have noticed that like many pop stars today these bands used auto-tune to make their voices as perfect as the can be, seeing as singing talent isn’t something everyone has. The Restitution employs the use of clean vocals, but sans the auto-tune. The vocals may throw listeners off at first, but after sometime the feeling of raw energy and power these vocals have becomes really impressive.

There is a feeling of honesty in this album, you feel a connection to the vocals and the emotion found therein. It’s almost jarring in some ways to hear something this involving. Plenty of music today doesn’t really get ingested by listeners, it simply goes in and out and while something can blow up real big, it’s often forgotten about in a relatively short time. Unfortunately I’m unsure that The Restitution will have the same level of success that pop artists will experience, but I can assure you this music will make you think, feel, and connect more with the band than most others. The final track ‘The Garden Laid Bare’ brings in a heaping of folk music inspiration but keeps things on the same tone as the whole album. This song couldn’t end the album any more perfectly. The emotion is just right.

There’s plenty that is special about The Restitution and they aren’t asking for much in return but a small bit of your attention. I’d venture to say that you’d be hard pressed to not listen to the album at least twice to really get the full range of emotion found within.