Review: Postal - Engineering the Antagonist

    Before Alabama was treated to the often political themed punk metal hybrid of The Crashing Falcon, there was Postal. Active from 1998 to 2004, the band was very much a proto version of TCF. Recorded over ten years ago, the album was never given a proper release due to incomplete vocals. Recently, however, TCF decided to throw it up on their Bandcamp as a "name your price" purchase, and it's well worth a download. Featuring members of other Huntsville AL acts such as Radiotron Barricade At Night, the release is a nice little time capsule of early 2000s metalcore and certainly better than many of the local releases this writer picked up from around the same time. Of the thirteen tracks, roughly half feature no vocals, which may be a strength of the release rather than a detriment. After a brief intro track, "Sober Sunday" gives you a good taste of what you're in for. The deathcore vocals are mostly inaudible, and one may say subpar, but for a demo recording from that era, the music is surprisingly strong. Next "The Coffin Nail Choke" picks things up with the type of familiar metalcore jam you may fondly recall in abundance from the mid-2000s. Again the vocals may be a bit lacking but the head banging and mosh worthy breakdowns should give you a dose of nostalgia if you once frequented these types of shows. Track four, which has a completely nonsense title, serves as an intermission before the album begins with the tracks that vocals were presumably never finished for. If you weren't a fan of the rough vocals the album arguably improves as it moves into the instrumental works. Starting with "You Sank My Battleship" you're then treated to 5 tracks of quite retro thrashy metalcore/deathcore. If you were around when the genres were popular in the state, the tracks make for quite the nostalgia trip and it seems safe to say these guys are more talented musicians than many of AL's metal bands from the era. The vocals return with "Murder Weapon Can Opener" but again they are fairly rough and incomprehensible. The release ends with "The Hell in Venus" which by far has the best vocal mix of the release. Here the vocals rotate between metalcore growl and cleanish vocals at times with a somewhat rap delivery. The track is of course quite heavy, though with a bit of catchiness mixed in thanks in part to the improved vocals. If every track were up to this standard the release would be an even more noteworthy one.

3.5/5 A must for The Crashing Falcon fans as well as those in need of a throw back to a bygone age of the State's scene. -Kevin Spann

Postal on Bandcamp

The Crashing Falcon on Bandcamp