Warship

If you could look at Francis Mark's career as a musical spectrum, you have to suppose that Warship helps bookend the heavier side of it. He helped pioneer the new wave of melodic metalcore for several years in From Autumn to Ashes while capturing his apparent affection for `90s emo in the Biology side project. Now, with Warship, Mark's newest endeavor with fellow FATA expatriate Rob Lauritsen, the duo has concocted a competent and fiery sound that leans closer to the Hydra Head school of metal than either Ferret or Trustkill's.

Supply and Depend supplies ash-black guitars with smoggy atmospheres or charred edges, depending on the song. A similarity to Until Your Heart Stops-era Cave In (see: strange melodic singing parts meet brutal, heavy noisy 'core-backed passages) seems to persist, like in the dynamically tempoed "Profit Over People" where Mark demonically howls "I know enough to know that I hate it / I hear his train coming, the ground begins to shake." "Where's Your Leash" throbs and crackles with Mark's patented, distorted snarl.

It's not all bang and clatter in both the musical and vocal department, though. "Wounded Paw" bears more brooding parts; granted, these moments are interpersed with sudden accelerations into fast and raucous territory. The especially deliberate "Lousy Horoscope" is a bit like Biology, actually, as it comes off like old Sunny Day Real Estate filled-out and infiltrated by slightly more dense and metallic tones; the emotional climax at the end finishes it off well, too, even though it looks a bit iffy on paper ("I know I'm never going to see you again / But I'm thankful for the time that we spent / And every time I lose a friend / I lose another layer of my armor").

Supply and Depend certainly isn't perfect. Not much of it sticks and the band could breathe once in a while (besides "Lousy Horoscope"), a freedom not entirely granted by the production.

Warship's debut doesn't quite fire on all cylinders at all times, but it provides plenty of neat ideas, meshing together Mark and Lauritsen's influences well for a debut.

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Wounded Paw
Where's Your Leash?
We've Never Been Equal
Fetus Flytrap