Vatican - Drowning the Apathy Inside

Pay what you want @ Bandcamp
I was positive I wouldn't like this because the cover art looks like some goth girl's high school art project. But I don't know shit and I ended up more than pleasantly surprised.

Vatican play extremely well-executed, intense metalcore that sounds like it belongs to the year 2000. I don't know how young these guys were back then, but I was still in my AFI phase so it doesn't really matter because I would've been clueless.

Regardless, I'm blown away that Vatican isn't charging for this record. I mean, it is pay what you want, but it sounds like you should have to pay for it. As far as pinpointing the band's influences or exactly what they sound like, I'd say these guys share common ground with bands like Morning Again, Culture, and even Buried Alive. And of course with newer bands like Discourse and Deathbed (Geoff from the latter does some guest vocals on the final track).

What I like the most about this record is that the songs are interesting without being overly technical. And they are also extremely heavy and musically/vocally - I'm using the word a second time - intense. Unprecedented quality from this brand new Savannah band. Get into them now so you can rip people off for their shirts in two years. Wait, do people still do that?