The Breakdown
After wowing with their debut album (read our review here), Teesside’s metal titans Motions, have returned with their new EP entitled The Paralysis. A concept EP covering the “dark journey through the psyche of a person suffering with suicidal ideation after losing everything they love”
With vocal cord-destroying screams, ‘Deathgrip’ kicks things off in true Motions style, expanding on what they delivered with their debut album. A great big mosh pit creating chugging rhythms sees the band dig deeper into the heaviness of the album; with the bass scraping the ground on ‘Never Enough’, the vocals get desperate as the drums rattle a new hole in the earth. This is one chorus begging for a live stage and such a pounding track it’s more of a physical assault rather than aural.
As with the band’s debut album, mental health is at the forefront of the lyrical output—in fact, this entire EP deals with it. The first single released, ‘Save Myself,’ brings a more melodic approach along with the soul-searching lyrics. The well-placed synths on track ‘So Low’ continue, boosted by the dual-voiced chorus of both clean and guttural.
The ferocity of ‘Hive’ is more of a physical attack than an aural assault. The melodic opening riff leads you into a false sense of security as this track will leave you battered and bruised. The detuned guitars lay into the listener with angular chords backed by a pattern of frantic kickdrums. The vocals are an essential part of this band, not only for the lyric side of the tracks but also for the emotion delivered in each frantic scream and banshee-like shouts. It’s heavy going but an essential part of what makes this album so powerful.
‘The End Is The Beginning In The End’ demonstrates the singer’s vocal prowess. Manic screaming matches a powerful clean vocal that echos the grief and internal trauma many feel. The huge guitar chords, with the added low end from the bass, are set on a rampage in between breaths of clean vocals.
With this EP, the band set out to simply pulverise the listener with heavy, grooved riffs and an apocalyptic backline. The production is refined, and this EP has the band sounding better than ever. Again, the album was recorded in-house. “We wrote, recorded, and released The Paralysis EP independently in Teesside, using our vocalist’s home recording booth for vocals and our drummer’s home studio for everything else.”
But the strength of this EP relies on its pure emotion. These tracks scream with a torrent of emotions and feelings transcribed into music that just batters its way through speakers. There are no egos here, no one-man showmanship, no super-star guitar work, and no planet-destroying drum solos from this band. It’s a brutal sonic wall of sound that each member has a vital part in creating, where the lyrics hit as hard as the music.
Check out the album’s opening track below:
Find out more via the band’s Facebook
Read our interview with the band here
Purchase the EP here
UK DATES:
Apr 27 The Georgian Theatre, Stockton-on-tees, UK
May 03 Little Buildings, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Jul 13 The Bunker, Sunderland, UK
Jul 21 Play brew Co, Middlesbrough, UK
Jul 25 Darlington Forum Music Centre, Darlington, UK
Sep 28 The Twisted Tongue, Whitehaven, UK
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