By Robin Ianson
Nights Like These hail from the state of Tennessee, a place more famous for pumping out country artists than pissed off metal-core bands. On their debut album, The Faithless, they show all the hallmarks of the genre: blisteringly fast songs, grinding guitars and barking, roaring vocals that are currently all the rage in metal.
Like an experience with a hooker that charges by the hour, The Faithless is a blazingly intense album featuring 11 tracks delivered in a scant 26 minutes. It just doesn’t leave you feeling very fufilled.
Sadly, someone forgot to tell Nights Like These the importance of good songwriting. Many of the songs are far too short to go anywhere, and often degenerate into making as much noise as possible. The uninspired album opener “Storming Valhalla” is the worst offender, being entirely forgettable and lacklustre. Longer tracks like “Scavenger’s Daughter” and the final track “Let The Waters Overtake Us” give Nights Like These the room they need to be creative and end up being the highlights of the album. Nights Like These show signs of real potential, but in an already crowded genre, The Faithless does little to separate them from their contemporaries. Perhaps in the future, Nights Like These will stop charging by the hour, and start bringing the rock.