Reviews

In ancient India, the word “lokoyata” is one to describe who believes in the physical earth alone, an atheist to put it simply. I’m not sure if Lokyata upholds this idea, but their EP “Purified by Anger” doesn’t seem to be one you’ll hear the band thanking God for on stage at the Grammys any time soon (at least I hope they wouldn’t, let alone at the Grammys). Lokyata, out of Jacksonville, Florida, provides a CD as angry as it is… angry. “Anger”, and not much else, seems to be the name of the game with this up and coming metal-core band out of thesouth, and they don’t hesitate to let anyone know in their six track EP, “Purified by Anger”.
 
My short browse through the album art was the very reason it was four days upon receiving it before I played this CD, for fear of being stabbed in the throat. With the cover displaying a dark series of images in the woods, first with a shirtless man holding a lifeless woman, and finally of him holding a shovel with a bottle of Wild Turkey in the background; the imagery itself set a dark overtone before I even heard the CD.
 
As the first song came on, entitled “You Can’t Say Much With a Gun in Your Mouth”, I immediately drew a resemblance to bands like Lamb of God with grind-core influenced drum parts like that of Between the Buried and Me. The guitars go from low chords to squealing riffs as sixteenth note rolls blaze the bass drum accented by ear popping snare drum pounding. Combine this with a purely aggressive and in your face scream comparable to few, and you’re ready to go knife shopping and prepare recreate a scene from your favorite slasher flick.
 
I was definitely not prepared to have my ass kicked audibly listening to it, but I can say that I left with a more aggressive outlook on the hardcore scene in Jacksonville, and promise to never take the south lightly again. Although it wasn’t a terrible CD, I found some of the songs to be drawn out longer than they should have been and some of the breakdowns were that you would expect of a generically drawn up metal-core band. I feel that the band didn’t do anything extremely different than that you would expect of a band with a hardcore sound raped and ravaged by death metal. It’s sometimes overly aggressive nature provides an almost clichéd sound, neatly wrapped and packaged for the listening please of metal kid upon his first breakup. I can’t criticize too harshly, being as they have only been together for just over 2 years; so I give “Purified by Anger” three stars with room for progress. I’m looking forward to what new angry tracks Lokyata will provide us in the future, and would hope that metal heads and hardcore kids everywhere will do the same.