The intro only has some background screaming vocals over some clean female vocals and a strummed guitar that fades away before the first hardcore anthem.
The first song certainly doesn't race out of the gate instead using a sludgier aproach that eventually turns into a kinda hard rock thing.
Zodiac Signs punches you in the face right out of the gates and doesn't let up at all. The rest of the songs keep up the hardcore power and heaviness but it seems like the anger is directed in a constructive direction.
Caffeinated Blues is the only song that the band doesn't sound like they're playing for lives. The contrast between them and the singer who's screaming harder than ever is quite interesting for a slower paced song.
I was going to say that instrumentally they sound a tad generic but that's only in misguided hindsight because the album roars by entirely too quickly. The whole thing is done in under twenty minutes. Positive hardcore but without any of the genre limitations of youth crew. The gang vocals really help grab my attention.
If the vocalist did more screaming and less shouting and the band played with screamo and punk instead of sludge and hard rock I would say it almost sounds like a even less traditional Touché Amoré.
They don't really tie themselves to one specific form of punk, moving through sludgier stuff, some stuff that is almost hard rock and more general straight ahead hardcore punk. They do it with a personality that refuses to be hidden by the confines of a single genre.
Hardcore is usually so focused on smashing your skull in they often forget to about emotional devastation. Which is one of the reasons why bands like Until Your Heart Stops hit as hard as they do.
