On the stereotypical metalhead's most dreaded holiday, Valentine's Day, while couples were off dining at restaurants and exchanging heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, two Las Vegas bands came together to produce "Nothing Happened Here:" A four-song split release between the screamo group Echoes of Amara and the metalcore group Sincerely Yours. Both bands brought their own styles, blending screamo and mall screamo with post-hardcore and metalcore. A pairing that sounds sweeter than those cheap chocolates.

Echoes of Amara starts, bringing supposedly two examples of their best material. "The Abyss" Quirky, almost homemade-sounding instrumentation comes barreling in, accompanied by a mix of harsh screams (duh) and soft spoken word. The track takes a sharp left and veers into a jazzy atmosphere with technical drumming and calm guitars. The aggressiveness soon unleashes once again, and I can really feel the emotion from the vocalist. The end of the song samples AM's speech from "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream," which is a bit corny, but it's not that important. Their second song, "The Book Of Misery," follows in the footsteps of the first song. Lovely bass, time signature switches, and passionate songwriting are all things to expect from Echoes of Amara's appearance on "Nothing Happened Here." The two songs are only two minutes and fifty-something seconds apiece, but I can see the inspirations taken from mathcore and even a little bit of swancore in the instrumentals, so I liked them.

It's time for Sincerely Yours to shine, and they have short(er) pieces. They're bringing the metalcore influence, but by looking at the song titles, I think they should be swapped with Echoes of Amara's. It's just vibes, as screamo songs tend to have drawn-out titles. "Oh Waiter! More Breakdowns Please" is an obvious critique of metalcore, and hilariously, there are a laughable number of breakdowns. Most of them are subtle, but they're there. The vocals stray from screaming for a minute at the end to further cement the metalcore effect, and they're used way more in "I Can't Stand The Sound Of Your Face Or The Sight of Your Voice." The waiter clearly listened to Sincerely Yours' previous request. Just like "The Book Of Misery," the song sets aside some time to get sentimental and slow, but not for too long - we have chugs to get to!

This little belated Valentine's Day nugget was quite a fun listen. Echoes of Amara and Sincerely Yours both leech off of eachother's styles, and they clearly can work together well enough to make a split record. While I greatly enjoyed Echoes of Amara's side more, Sincerely Yours is still a solid old metalcore revival band. "Nothing Happened Here" is a small but mighty sampler to sink your teeth into once your Valentine's Day sweets are gone.