Christmas Neurosis (A Day Of Nights - Battle Of Mice)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	A Day Of Nights - Battle Of Mice
Date:	26/02/08 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Emotive and intense post-metal with a great performance from Julie Christmas.

Disadvantages: Becomes repetitive and a little tedious, causing the effect to diminish.

The only full-length release so far from sort-of-post-metal band Battle of Mice is similar to most other modern releases by bands whose genre begins in post-, following a repeating structure of mellow, quiet segments intersecting more violent, thunderous and heated passages. In this instance it's entirely appropriate to the lyrical themes, apparently based around the turbulent relationship between band founders Julie Christmas (of Made Out of Babies) and Josh Graham (of excellent post-metal pioneers Neurosis), whose love life is so similar in structure to a post-metal song that it's borderline cheesy.

There's a strong hardcore element balancing out the minor metal elements here, the latter of which are only really present in some of the heavier guitar riffs in songs like 'Salt Bridge,' as Christmas moves from a standard, almost depressive singing style to a full-blown, scary scream when the louder sections kick in. Fans of post-rock, post-hardcore, post-metal and post-traumatic stress syndrome will likely enjoy this as a shining example of the combined genre, and an interesting one for having a female singer, but it does drag on significantly towards the end, as the songs become even longer at just the point where I really could have done with them becoming shorter.

Despite some eerie backing keyboards in track one, this is mostly standard, no-frills post-whatever music performed by regular rock instruments at a significantly slowed tempo, although there are some nice guitar slowlos and acoustic sections to keep things from becoming too overly repetitive, though my strained use of "too overly" should indicate the level to which it's already present. 'Bones in the Water' takes far too long to get started, attempting to use silence as a tool but making the mistake of placing it at the beginning so the listener has to wait before anything exciting or musical happens, and after the half-way point, Christmas' screams start to lose some of their effectiveness through over-use. All the same, it's a fine example of whatever genre listeners decide it belongs to, and will satisfy fans of emotive music provided they have a long attention span.

1. The Lamb & the Labrador
2. Bones in the Water
3. Sleep and Dream
4. Salt Bridge
5. Wrapped in Plain
6. At the Base of the Giant's Throat
7. Cave of Spleen

Summary: Battle of Mice's first album (2006).