It's now time for our 188th monthly CD review at The Sault Metal Scene, and after a two month spell of archival reviews, we have the first new local metal release of 2025 to look at this month, namely new local industrial solo act The Realignment Project's debut EP "Afterthought"! Independently released to their Bandcamp page on January 29th, this EP is the first output from The Realignment Project, led by former Dirty Virgin drummer and Riverin frontman Matt Hicks, who is the only credited performer here. Readers around the local scene in the early 2010s will recall that Riverin were also an industrial metal band, so if you wanted to hear more from them, you may want to pay extra attention to The Realignment Project's EP! "Afterthought" is on sale on a "name your price" model, so while you can download it for free on Bandcamp, consider paying something to support Matt's work!
With six songs running for about 22 minutes, let's begin this review with the opening song, "Broken Machine"! This song alternates between Matt serving as a carnival barker/ringmaster of sorts, if for a very dark circus, with angry shouted choruses about how we can't stop/fix the title machine. The industrial and electronic influences are well applied, but it's definitely a hard rocker underneath, and it has a cool sound to it with good percussion. I would like more varied lyrics, but it's a good starter for The Realignment Project! Next up is "Finger On The Trigger", which earns its metal points from Matt's vocals, not the music, which is purely electronic, and very repetitive and plonky (especially the ending). The aggressive and pointed vocals do help push things along, but I'd have inserted them over something heavier.
Third is "Mother", which seems to be from the point of view of missing one's late mother (having lost my mother in 2020, I completely sympathize with Matt here). For as relatable as the lyrics are, they are a slightly awkward fit in an industrial song, let alone with Matt's singing voice not really being suited for a mournful lament like this. It's well composed as an instrumental piece, but the lyrics and singing don't really fit inside for me despite the sincere intentions behind this song. Your mileage may vary! Then we have "Incomplete", which opens with a distorted bass line that drives things even as more instruments and industrial effects come into play. Lyrically about being incomplete to conform with societal expectations, this song does return to form in terms of its darker overtones, if with a somewhat 16-bit synth sound (if that's fair), but it's more ominous than heavy. I do like the contrast of how laid back the structure is compared to the instrumentation!
A little over-long, but it's the best song since the opener on "Afterthought"! The penultimate (and longest) song on the EP is "Something Strange", which seems to be about a personal crisis and trying to escape it at all costs. The heaviest song on offer since "Broken Machine", this alternates spare industrial verses with more aggressive and in-your-face choruses, with layered gang vocal effects therein. The verses are dancing on the line of rap at points, and I'd have had more instrumental involvement to liven them up, but it's got more going for it as a complete composition for metal fans! The Realignment Project close their debut EP with its shortest song, "Synthetic", which is another song that comes closer to rap than metal thanks to the techno beat, but he does yell the choruses, and the verses are delivered in an eerie whisper. It's not badly done for what it is, and while I like heavier stuff than this, Matt shows his musical variety well to close!
So, what are my final thoughts on The Realignment Project's first EP? Inconsistent for what I like musically, but there's enough here for industrial and rock fans to get something out of it! To compare how things have evolved since Matt's prior industrial metal project Riverin sounded in their heyday, I did check out their songs on Reverbnation anew, and T.R.P. definitely feel like a fuller realization of what Matt was going for a decade+ ago in both musical performance and production quality. Vocally, Matt does have limitations, but I was reminded of Henry Rollins more than once, which is not an insult whatsoever! The industrial side of things is way more prevalent than the rock side, with only "Broken Machine" and "Something Strange" having heavy passages, but Matt does yell on additional songs. Molten Imp aside, industrial music isn't too common locally, and what we get here is strongly composed and performed!
Of course, I'd liked to have heard more rock-integrated music for longer, but beyond that, I don't think "Mother" worked that well despite its strong lyrical theme, and some songs could be a little long and/or repetitive as they went along, but there's a nice variety here, and it's good to see Matt back with a new project, let alone one where he can finally pull off things that Riverin didn't! Buy or stream "Afterthought" at the above links, and I hope you guys liked this month's CD review! Barring a new album release ahead (check our next "Where Are The New Albums?" post on Sunday for candidates), we'll return to the archives for the March 2025 review if there's nothing new to report. Preference will be with artists who play live next month, but it will not be of a Sykotyk Rampage or Agnosticism album due to our six month anti-bias buffer period between reviews of albums from the same project.
Look for next month's review... next month, and for this month's YouTube Channel Profile next, with weekend concert previews following on Thursday, and more news/notes soon also! Thanks everyone!
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