Eminence   

The God of All Mistakes

Locomotive Records 2008

At its heart The Secret is an In some ways, Brazil's Eminence has an In Flames feel to it but for the most part they are a typical death/metalcore band with lots of groove and "intense" riffing.  They can border on kind of trendy and even silly.  Just listen to the chorus on Resistance to understand what I mean.  Day 7 boasts an amalgam of Nu-metal styles and influences from chunky mosh riffing to clean vocals to an almost rap vocal cadence.  The next track, Your Devil's Boulevard begins with blasting brutal death metal but quickly gives way to some nu-metal leanings.  The clean vocals are really commercial rock sounding and would not be out of place on a top-40 metalcore song.  And thus I am faced with the crux of the situation with Eminence.  They have two very divergent styles meeting in a headlong, and ultimately tragic, collision.  A somewhat underground death metal style melding with the mainstream sensibilities of metalcore and nu-metal.  These two styles are not complimentary.  At least not on this album and certainly not in my head.  It is not all bad though, the rhythms on Injected Lies are quite captivating but ultimately it falls flat because it is sewn together with music I find distasteful.  I have heard worse bands in this genre but I finally almost nothing interesting in what these Brazilians are doing.  There could be a large commercial appeal to some of the more superficial of metal fans out there with this album.  But for me I choose a different path.