Sunday, March 01, 2009

KILL TO GAIN's demo on myspace


Question: after submitting many many demo\'s, im just wondering \"are they actually listening to them?\"
PLEASE GIVE US SOME FEED BACK.
thanks. From: bennybunter@hotmail.co.uk

Answer: Alright dude calm down...we get a zillion bands contacting us all the time to check them out- and we certainly checked out KILL TO GAIN.You submitted your details in the correct way - using our form on the contacts page of earache.com and sure enough your myspace page ended up in my inbox to look at, so you already did better than most bands- YOU ACTUALLY read the instructions! Congrats..Wow, its not difficult really.

Anyways- sorry to disappoint you lot but I don't think your band actually cuts it...the competition to be signed is ferocious, and you sadly are too unrehearsed/ too sloppy in fact.You are simply too new to your instruments, like most demo bands we hear.
Heres how it looked from my end, let me don my best Simon Cowell-type trousers -pulled chest high- and give ya a listen:

The Myspace player played me "Set Free" and within the first 15 seconds I could sense the drums were ponderous and the groove/rhythm of the band was not millisecond tight.In fact its way off,so we automatically pass.I didnt even wait till the vocals or main riff kick in before making up my mind.As it happens I think the sung vocalist was good, the shouty was boring- the 2 together is old fashioned.The song overall was mediocre.

The best bits of your band is the sung vocals, they sound quite heartfelt and mournful, about 2 minutes into "Because of You' is really cool-cos it is reminiscent of System of A Down or Scars on Broadway.You should ditch the shouty vokills because they seem forced and unnatural for the singer-his natural style is singing vocals, the beggining of "Used" is really fine actually- its your best song and should be first in the player and make sure it plays first each time.I know it unheavy but for some reason its your most natural style.

The shredding guitar solo type intro at the beginning of Dreamworld Massacre is frankly poor.And the uptempo shouty 'What did I Say' is your worst song in my opinion, there was nothing catchy about it.I'd remove that one.

So overall, your band is much like many others we hear- you are about as average as they come.You have some promising moments but its let down by overall untogetherness, and lack of tightness in the playing, and lack of direction.

In the rehearsal room or playing to a handful of fans these things can be over-come by the vibes and the energy coming off stage.When it comes to getting the opinion of the larger metal labels- the demo has to instantly grab our attention. Earache is no different to the rest of bigger metal labels, we are all looking for world class, original metal bands.Except in Earache's case we are historically more likely to take a punt on bands which have no fanbase but simply strike us as having a fresh new innovative metal sound-which these days is mostly the new breed of young Traditional Heavy Metal bands coming through at this present time.

Lastly I wish your band all the best, and who knows, if a couple of lucky breaks go your way, then KILL TO GAIN could be the big new breakthrough metal act in a year or two's time.Bands can progress very fast, I've noticed.At the end of the day the best advice I can give you is to tour more,and keep touring, as the bands that play the most shows invariably end up the biggest.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

dude im not being funny, but ive probly been playing drums longer than uve been out of high school.
and the whole thing was checked with a click track after it was finished so im afraid "im sorry to say" that ure timing must be well off as its perfect coz the computer that we checked it with says it is. But yeah we are open to critisism, just not all that bad man, ive been doing this along time and i think that for a week in the studio thats not "sony" or summat, its a pretty good record!
So until ure rich and in a metal band you should think better of those who do this.Its not easy or cheap by a long shot.
we all work regular jobs too.

Also i was thinking "decapitated" who are one of urs i believe, have a song called "blessed" and that is by no measure "perfect" the snare and pedals are all over the shop.But i still like thier music ne ways...so look beyond what makes you lot cash, and maybe just like it for the sake of music!
nuff sed, now get back to work!

Anonymous said...

maybe the reason your band isnt getting signed is because you spend time checking drums with computers instead of just being able to rock

Anonymous said...

Certainly not open to criticism at all... You aren't that good...
You had the opportunity of being given great pieces of advice. Just listen to them and try to learn something...