In the past few years I had been having this notion that Alternative Metal, while not calling it Nu-Metal, died in the late stages of the 90's. Well, I guess I was wrong in a way, however maybe not that much. There is a much less activity in the Alternative Metal scene than it was in the middle 90's, yet, those type of bands have kept on coming. The rising band from Washington, RESTRUCT, has the fundamentals of an Alternative Metal group, nevertheless, they try to show something else. After reviewing their first independent release, "Built Back Up From Self-Destruction", I have to imply that they still have a long way to go before reaching the top.
Right from the beginning the feeling is that there is something different than modern Hard Rock or Alternative stuff. The feel of modern Heavy Metal is in the air especially after hearing the riffs and the solid rated solos of the band's lead filler, Colin Ault. Typically those two elements made this band a lot special than similar artists as STAIND, 3 DOORS DOWN and a like. On some parts of the album, I seemed to have heard small bit so of the fine character and finesse of TOOL. For the credit of RESTRUCT, they did a nice job on trying to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Alternative scene.
Nonetheless, I wasn't that amazed of what was done here. Alternative Metal has its appealing attributes such as smoothness, flow, catchiness and simplicity on most cases. What is more interesting that those attributes maintained this release as well. However, what didn't go well for this band is the fact that it is all coming back to the same thing. Almost every song on this album is practically the same as the other.
There are very nice songs here like the drowning "Alcohol", which can be categorized as the best one, groovy and catchy as hell "Drag Me Down", unending heaviness of "Change", crunchy "Peeling Skin" and the dramatic "Can't Let You Go". From those you can derive that this band can write quality enough tunes, however the Alternative or Nu Metal bug of endless repetitive hurt RESTRUCT on their first tryout. Also, from what I can assess those guys have talents. In order not to succumb to what Alternative Metal has to "offer", this band should try to use a different perspective.
