No Warning

Being the first signing to Linkin Park’s Machine Shop Records has been both a blessing and a curse for Toronto’s No Warning. A blessing because the band is getting more attention than they would probably have otherwise. A curse because by aligning themselves with one of the most commercially successful nu-metal bands around, they have become just like them. Suffer, Survive is almost like two albums in one with the first three or four songs belonging to a Murphy’s Law-inspired NYC hardcore thrash metal record and the last six or seven sounding like they belong on a label started by Linkin Park. Most obvious from the transformation of vocalist Ben Cook’s form a hardcore screamer into a slightly gravellier version of LP’s Chester Bennington. The disc starts out so promisingly but quickly turns into a rote groove metal record. Such a pity.