So this summer I was in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania when I came upon the Lycoming Mall. A lone beacon of capitalism (and civilization from the looks of things), the mall had a Hot Topic. After being among the equivalent of Puritan middle-American people for several weeks, it was a breath of fresh air to walk into a store with the Deftones blaring. After buying some random stuff, I grabbed a demo disc off the counter at the clerk's insistence. I threw it in my bag, and proceeded to forget about it.
Fast forward several months the disc reappears amid the clutter of my room. Rather than tossing it aside (as I did with most of the dirty laundry, I gave it a spin. That demo ended up being a three song sampler from a Rhode Island-based band named Imprint.
While the production and mixing of the songs needed improvement, the overall sound is pretty good. Heavily influenced by the aforementioned Deftones, Imprint uses various vocal styles laid over chugging guitars and cymbal-heavy drum work.
The first track, “Hard To See“, sounds absolutely muddy at times but Jaymz Iacono's vocals are impressive as they go from whispers, to growls, to actual singing and back. “Configured” has much better mixing, and thus Gary Potter's guitar and Chad Maggs' bass stand apart from each other and help add body behind the singing. The final song on the sampler is “Downgrade“. Much like the initial track, it has a thick bottom end that trudges along underneath the vocals. Drummer Chris Hayes could stand to use his cymbals a bit less but he held drive the music forward and keep it all together well while adding a few good drum rolls.
All three songs can be found on Imprints full-length debut album “Upper Memory Denied” and more about the band can be found on www.imprintmusic.com.
