Do It With Malice – The Burned Over District

[ad]

[rating:3/5]
© 2010 Do It With Malice

Do you ever listen to new music and hear an influence or similarity, a subtle influence in the sound that makes your mind battle to figure out who or what it reminds you of? Well damn if I don’t have that going on when I listen to The Burned Over District, the new release from Do It With Malice.

Do It With Malice (DIWM) hails from the city of Buffalo in the great state of New York and plays an intriguing blend of metal punk ska. As a five-piece, the band is stripped down for efficiency considering that they have a 2/5 horn player ratio. I say hells yeah, good for them, less people to split the income with.

The Burned Out District features 10 tracks running reasonably on the quick side of the tempo spectrum. The majority of the songs are, to one degree or another, ska influenced and run heavy on the metal. An interesting note is that a good portion, especially in the early tracks of the disc, lead in with very 80’s style intros. Just listen to the single note metal riffery of “Fermeta Armada” and the clean/chorus guitar intro on track 2, “6-18” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

In addition to previous, It also feels like there is a bit of funk influence as well. Overall, I think The Burned Over District is a solid and competent, if not completely cohesive release. I think maybe I would have arranged tracks a bit differently and I think I would ditch a lot of the guitar effects, but hey opinions vary. … But what the hell does this remind me of? Now that I think more about it, the entire sound makes me think of newer Catch 22 mixed with 311 … if you add that up, you get Catch 333 … coincidence, I think not.

Bottom line: Solid ska/punk/metal outta Buffalo. I think I would totally dig them live.

Tracks:
1: Fermata Armada
2: 6.18
3: Take The Stage
4: Russian Roulette
5: No Music
6: Nickel and Dime
7: Rabiddz
8: Pirt Egnarts
9: Choke Me Running
10: Commodity

For more info: www.diwmny.com