As a fan of metal, I'm sure that at least once in your life you've been pigeonholed into some form of "freak" category at first glance by someone. Everyone does that - we need a frame of reference to judge everything we see, and shoving it with something we already know and fits its general shape helps us do it.

Why am I saying all that? Because it would be wrong to categorize the British power-trio CROWSAW as Metal. Coming from Bluesy Alt-Rock, these guys have tried to make everything heavier in their new EP, "Karma", going towards "a defiant metallic crunch" (quoted from the band's website)... however, heavy distortion and palm-mutes do not a Metal song make.

As heavy alt-rock, this EP is pretty decent. Nothing that blew me away, but the melodic clean intervals are very nice and the clean-chord-lead-over-heavy-rhythm are well-executed. The hooks and choruses are pretty cool, too. The overall effect, though, feels more like they tried to sew heavier sounds into their existence musical vision, to Frankensteinian results - and not in the good way.

Heavy influences (for that matter, any influences) are welcome almost everywhere, but they should feel like an integral part of the work rather than something put on top of it to fit a wider focus group, and I don't think the EP has done a very good job at employing that.