One of the things I hate the most about this job is having to
\ngive negative reviews of independent artists. It almost seems
\nunfair for me to say something bad about a disc that an artist or
\ngroup poured their time, money, sweat and tears into, and
\nundoubtedly feel quite proud about.<\/p>\n
But in the case of Too Bad, a Florida group comprised of
\nbrothers Tracy and Troy Schmelzer, that’s exactly the position I
\nfind myself in. Their four-song EP,
\nLay The Smack Down<\/i>, fails to impress, and shows the
\nlimitations of the group all too clearly.<\/p>\n
The act – Tracy on lead vocals and bass, Troy on guitars and
\nbass, and drummer Tim See – is in the heavy metal vein, though the
\nmixing of the album leaves very little bite in the music. I thought
\nthe disc was mixed too softly (something I do hear often in demos),
\nand there wasn’t enough treble to really add some punch to the
\nguitar work.<\/p>\n
But the one thing that desparately needs fixing that can’t be
\ntouched up in the mix is Tracy Schmelzer’s singing. Sometimes, it
\nseems like the riff he’s singing is for an entirely different song,
\nand doesn’t go with what he and the rest of Too Bad are playing
\n(“Wake Up”). Other times, he’s just off-key – and painfully so
\n(“Shadows Always There” – and, for that matter, “Wake Up”).<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there’s not much on
\nLay The Smack Down<\/i> that holds out any promise. Although
\nTracy Schmelzer’s leads provide a little sunlight in the storm, he
\nmakes the mistake of cutting them off too early and allowing the
\nrhythm guitar to carry the remainder of the bridge. Granted,
\nreproducing this live would be a greater challenge should Too Bad
\nremain a trio, but in the studio, I would have liked to have heard
\nthe leads stretch out a bit.<\/p>\n
\nLay The Smack Down<\/i> is a disc that regrettably shows that not
\nall bands are cut out for the big time. Too Bad, I’m sure, gave it
\ntheir all on this one, but the end result was too… well, it
\nwasn’t good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7421],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-39032","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-too-bad","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39032"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}