Behold! The City is a five-piece band from Barrie, Ontario that recently signed to Red Cord Records. They are most noticeably influenced by melodic hardcore bands, but it’s easy to hear the post-hardcore and metalcore influence as well. The post-hardcore vibe is felt mainly because of the clean vocals heard on a few tracks on their debut full-length album, Seekers. Seekers was released on August 28th.
After a slow, heavily distorted, and somewhat redundant intro, the tempo picks up immediately and “Resuscitate” sets the album on the right path. The guitar leads are melodic and “Resuscitate” is the first track to display that. On nearly every song, there is something spectacular provided by the guitarists. “Grave Robbers” and “Radicals” are loaded with melodic leads as well, and they are two of my personal favourites on Seekers.
The vocals are pretty good, for the most part, but sometimes the cleans aren’t executed very well. For example, “The Vigilant Few” would be better off without the cleans near the middle of the track and “For The Seekers” needs a bit more variety. Also, some of the lyrics are very cliché, the most cliché being “If home is where the heart is, then my heart is out at sea” heard on the third track, “Dead Future”.
Another flaw with Seekers is that a few tracks have nothing or very little going on. As previously mentioned, the intro track is redundant. The instrumental interlude entitled “Ascendance” sounds good, but there is no real reason for it to be there. All it does is add another two minutes to the playtime of the album. Furthermore, the final track, “For The Seekers”, is much too long and never really picks up. When it nears the end, the lyrics are very preachy, and for the first time on the album, it’s clear that Behold! The City is a Christian band.
If it weren’t for the impressive guitar riffs and leads, this would just be another run-of-the-mill melodic hardcore band and release. The vocals, drumming, and bass are decent but the guitar parts are on point from start to finish and make Seekers a very fun listen. I hope that Behold! The City continues to write songs like “Grave Robbers”, “Radicals”, and “Sarah’s Song” because they are strong tracks that don’t ever let up.
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