I would love it if somebody could explain to me the fixation on blood that so many new bands seem to have.

Not that I counted or anything, but the Scare's new EP Snakes Among Saints has more mentions of blood than the record does minutes. 11, just to give you a small insight into the fixation that I already referred to. This morbid fascination finds its way into all the lyrics, with additional talk of dying, angels, and other allusions to the end of life.

As you may imagine, the music largely matches the themes behind it. While I won't lie to you and say they don't have some extremely catchy rhythms, I would in fact be lying to you if I said the majority of the content here isn't completely vapid and devoid of any sort of creativity. The band's vocalist could have a good thing going if he were to stick to the style of delivery displayed on the opening track, "We Don't Worship the Devil, He Worships Us," where the clear but frantic hardcore delivery is a match made in heaven for the back-and-forth rhythms being played underneath. The trouble comes when he drops the shout, and starts the sing. Nasal doesn't really cover things, as that vocal assault on all things good and decent completely overrides any positive strides the band had previously made.

Not that there were many to begin with.

There's only so many ways one band can repackage the very same song, and even on an EP, an 11-minute one at that, there's recurring instances and recurring riffs. This shouldn't happen on a full-length, let alone something with not even half the run time of a half-hour TV show. But I guess knowing the lyrics, recycling could be a strong theme in the album anyhow.

All the bloody, bleeding, dying deaths of mortal angels will eat this record up; the rest will probably not even have an appetite.