Metal core. A genre that is quite popular in Belgium. With bands like Deviate and Length of Time, Belgium is ‘on the map` in the hardcore scene. Maybe Set The Tone is the ‘next big thing` in metal core country? A new band that were formed in 1998 under the moniker of ‘Cranky Kong’ (why the flying fuck would you name your band Cranky Kong?!). It wasn’t going quite as planned and some choices had to be made. They changed the style and the name (into ‘Set The Tone’) and started playing a mix of Pro-Pain, Merauder, Pantera and death metal. This is their first CD, and it contains 6 songs of well.. death metal core. Think of Merauder and Cannibal Corpse travelling on a honeymoon. It’s brutal, but never ‘death metal’ brutal.

It’s core, but never the fast ‘hardcore’. Just in between. The guitar lines are catchy sometimes (‘Open Minded’ for example) and occasionally remind me of the band 2 Ton Predator (especially the ‘Rockin’ Outro’). It has the same bluesy feeling on the riffs. I can’t say that this is a CD that you should buy immediately. It’s just a good metalcore-CD, and that’s that. There isn’t anything special on it, just the music, which is not bad and not good, somewhere in between. I think they have some potential (the song ‘Soilent Blue’ truly is a good song), but they didn’t use it on this CD. It’s too bad, but I think nobody will notice them in the sea of releases this month.