I gotta hand it to Roadrunner Records, they sure know how to scout talent when it comes to signing Metal bands. The label started out impressing me beyond belief earlier this year with newcomers Taking Dawn and now the debut album from Mutiny Within is keeping my face lit with a smile.

Album opener ‘Awake’ starts with about 20 seconds of keys and then the heaviness kicked in. Clean vocals mixed with extreme vocals; my first instinct was that we had another Killswitch Engage clone on our hands and that I was going to be disappointed. Before it got too carried away with its pummeling metalcore delivery some progressive arrangements changed the tide a bit with more keys being added in along with some tempo changes. Interesting. Before getting too carried away with the prog element the heaviness was back (which I thought was excellent) as trading the two styles back and forth kept me on my feet. Once figuring out the bands formula I began to really focus in on vocalist Chris Clancy and realized just how powerful his clean vocals are. Personally, not much into bands who mix the clean and extreme unless the clean voice is out of this world because anyone can do extreme vocal, but Mutiny is one of the few bands joining the likes of Raintime, Mercenary, and Scar Symmetry who do the clean/extreme combo the right way.

‘Year of Affliction’ is perhaps the standout track with its mesmerizing guitars and an extremely catchy, sing-a-long chorus. I can already see an Ozzfest or Metal Mayhem summer audience singing in unison to this track in between moshing and crowd surfing. This song wouldn’t even be a far cry from being played on the radio. The only thing preventing it would be the slightly extreme vocals but whatever; American radio needs to grow some balls. ‘Lethean’ starts off like a freight train in the distance with a far away sound of shredding guitar and before you know it impact is imminent as the song explodes into a monster. This is by far the heaviest song on the album and the guitar work is just insane drawing influences from both Michael Romeo (Symphony X) and Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom).

Mutiny Within’s playing is very tight and on point with the tempo changes being flawless. These guys could be looked at as mini Dream Theaters in training and speaking of, I recently read that John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy were big fans of this album and they can see them going over well with the Dream Theater audience. I couldn’t agree more and think Mutiny would be a very solid opener for the progressive giants. I also feel that they will appeal to the metalcore masses and peers Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying and All That Remains need to watch their backs. Here comes a band who is cut from the same cloth but doing something different which is sure to gain attention from an audience who may be growing tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. Maybe this is why Mutiny Within is opening tours for the likes of Arch Enemy, Exodus, Sonata Arctica and Death Angel… perhaps the metalcore bands fear their audience may be lost to these great rookies.

I can certainly see these guys becoming a staple in the Metal world and they sure have the right label behind them to make that happen. Give them a little time and much like Trivium I am sure they will be headlining their own tours within the next 2-3 years.