Artist: Design The Skyline
Album: Nevaeh
Genre: Scenecore
Label: Victory Records

A few months ago, I wrote a review on a new Victory Records band, The Bunny The Bear, pretty much just talking about how resoundingly awful they are, and furthermore, how resoundingly awful Victory Records has become; tumbling from titans of the music industry, down to simple comic relief while they try to regain their footing, and attain some legitimacy once more. Unfortunately, it’s not really working out too well for them, instead of slowly building up their roster with up and coming superstars like that did nearly a decade ago, they’re signing bands that I can’t imagine would be appealing to much of anyone. The most recent, and most embarrassing of these abysmal signing decisions is Design The Skyline, a band that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have any actual fans, just people that think their music is hilarious; simply too awful to be hated. Which is really unfortunate, I’m not quite sure how a label can develop a band like Taking Back Sunday, and then suck the bottom of the barrel, and turn up with these guys, but such is life I suppose. I can only hope that Design The Skyline’s apparent lack of a fanbase or any general appeal whatsoever, will spell a quick and somewhat painless demise for these guys, so Victory can take this as a lesson learned, and move on to, one can hope, better things. If Nevaeh is anything to go by, I think my prediction will end up being fairly accurate, I simply can’t imagine anyone enjoying what I can only describe as a “my-first-crabcore-band” album, a compilation of the most basic elements of metalcore’s redheaded stepbrother, that is not only blindingly dull, but neigh on unlistenable as well.

I suppose I’ve already made my opinion on the merit of this album quite clear; it’s not any good. I knew this before I listened to it, and I suspect most people reading this drew similar conclusions. The thing is, Design The Skyline isn’t a very good band, that isn’t really a surprise to anyone, but what most won’t think about, is how horribly cliché and predictable this album is. It’s painful to listen to musically, to the point where it’s downright hilarious, but during the first track on the album, “Crystal Swords Kill The Hordes” I said to myself during the intro swell, “They’re gonna start with a breakdown.” Check. “…Then they’re gonna breakdown the breakdown.” Double check. If this weren’t so easy, it would be entertaining. It’s not like they’re following a good formula either, first off, if you start not only a song, but an album, with a breakdown, you aren’t breaking anything down, simple as that. And furthermore, if they are breaking down a breakdown before they have any actual verse or chorus, they’re doing something seriously wrong. And of course, all of this doesn’t even begin to touch on the actual musical quality of this band, or lack thereof, really. The screams sound like a Deathcore vocal cover on YouTube, and the synth tones sound like they were factory presets from an early-90s Casio. The drums are very obviously programmed, and really quite bad, the guitar parts are awfully contrived, and the tones are muddy, and the clean vocals are just an incoherent, auto-tuned mess. I could really go on all day if I didn’t feel like I wasn’t just going over things I’m pretty sure everyone already knows. And I’m afraid that’s really all there is to say about this album. It’s not even worth listening to for comedic value, just don’t bother.

Of course, I’m fully aware that there is oftentimes a stark difference between a good band, and a band that will make money, as unfortunate as that is. But so far as I can tell, Design The Skyline fits neither of those roles, instead they have become the punchline of every scene-band joke of the past six months or so. I guess the real question here, is who should be more embarrassed about this travesty of a band, Design The Skyline themselves, or Victory for trying to bring them into the spotlight. Victory Records may have brought us Taking Back Sunday’s Tell All Your Friends but at this point, I’m not even sure that makes up for trying to sell their fans something at this caliber of terrible.

0/10
Reviewed by: Mike Hogan

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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