Formed in Rome, Italy in 2009, SCREAMING BANSHEE is a Progressive Death Metal band. "Pierceive" is the band's sophomore full-length release, and it's been eight years since their debut. The album contains eight tracks. "Heritage" leads off the album. It opens with heavy guitar accents, and then the pace quickens. The vocals are vile utterances and the drums roll like thunder. It sounds more like Technical Death Metal to me, with some Progressive influences. It slows to some clean guitars and some depressing tones. "Reality is Perception" is another lengthy outing. When the main riff gets going, it sounds like Thrash Metal to me. The Progressive elements come through strong here, and the band is quite talented.

"Devotion" opens with some ethereal but somewhat sad clean guitars. From there, a similar pattern develops as with the previous tracks. It breathes a bit at the chorus, as layers are added, and then takes a sad turn, with a little melody developed from the guitars. "Sweet as Pain" begins with some clean guitars, but again, a similar pattern develops. A lead guitar passage shows some real musicianship.

"The Missing One" features some of the same sounds as the other tracks, and this repetitiveness is starting to wear on me. Their skills are very strong, but they need to diversify. The chaos is quite thick, and they easily take sharp turns on a dime. "Conflict" begins with a slower groove, and some nice harmonic guitar work. Little snippets of melody can be heard every now and again, but they are few and far between. Another dexterous guitar solo comes down, and this song sounds at least a little but different than some of the others.

"Born Creators" opens with clean guitars and some melancholy tones, that are quickly dashed by a pummeling mid-section. The clean guitars return for just a spell but are quickly replaced by a fast-moving passage. This waxing and waning continue throughout the song, with neither side really coming out as victorious. "To be or to Learn" closes the album, with doleful guitar tones and some ambient melodies. A little more of this would have gone a long way on the album. It's emotive, pensive, and introspective, and the delicate nature of the song is quite pretty.

The band has some skills, that is for sure. Every member is exceptional at their instruments. The cover art is fantastic as well. The main problem, and this seems to be a theme lately with albums I review, is that, with the exception of a couple tracks, too many of the songs sound the same. Sure, it's brutal, but I need more from my music. There is no variance in the vocals at all. They have to find a way to distance themselves from the many other bands playing this style of music, and add in more of their personality into the music. It's good, but with these improvements, it has potential to be much better.