Gone Without Trace

Gone Without Trace formed in Orange County, California in 2001 and has toured extensively; while the band recorded an EP for the Naivete label in 2003, this is their debut full-length. It finds them working in a well-developed metallic-hardcore vein, nicely balancing dark heaviosity with nimble speedcore precision. Needless to say, you’ll find nothing here in the way of melodies or hooks, just a headlong rush into bloody oblivion and lots of roared, despairing lyrics (“Destroy the world and I’ll watch it burn,” “Bury me six feet below with my heart and my conscience/You’ve watched me raped of this world,” etc.). Every once in a while (as on “Everything’s Bigger in Texas”) one of the guitars will hit escape velocity and loop upwards out of the morass, executing an elegant loop-di-loop before being dragged back into the mosh pit, and those moments can be kind of thrilling. Otherwise, this is a perfectly serviceable but not especially noteworthy metalcore exercise. – Rick Anderson