Reviewed by Christian Cunningham

Blessed with an extremely contemporary sound, this band are eminently marketable right about. . .now! Canadian five piece Cry Of The Afflicted, with their finger on the pulse, have crafted an excellent disc that will slot right into today's heavy rock scene. On the album opener "Lift The Veil" you could be forgiven for thinking it's As I Lay Dying with a guest vocal, although Garret Packer's roar is still red-facedly raw enough to ensure COTA can sound brutal when they feel like it. However, the majority of this album has an even mix between clean vocals and screamo shouting, and thus sounds closer to Saosin with a harder edge; I wont say Bullet For My Valentine because. . .oh, too late. Thankfully, it's good; very good. Delicious dual guitar harmonies entwine lovingly with the pounding rhythm section to produce a multi -layered sound, and the production sounds worthy of a bob or two. One thing that really stood out for this reviewer is the very addictive nature of some of the riffs; I found myself searching out this CD to put on repeatedly, just to get a fix of several riffs that had become surgically implanted in my brain. This band could really become heavy-hitters in the scene and with a quality product such as this to back them up they deserve to.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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