THE CD: See You Pay ARTIST: Into The Void SOUNDS LIKE: Hardcore punk/thrash CHOICE TRACKS: “See You Pay”, “Why?”, “Disposable Friends” From the land of Polar Bears and Mary Lou Retton, Fairmont’s Into The Void recently stepped onto the local metal scene with their new CD “See You Pay,” a delightful romp of thrash and hardcore punk, with a little bit of classic metal thrown in. The trio has already received nods from numerous outlets, including X106.3’s Loud and Local program, and a brief mention of the music on their Myspace profile on BrA’Zine, among others. The band (Cameron Childers: bass/vocals; Cody Childers: guitar; Greg Ramsey: drums) has added four previously unreleased tracks to what you could hear on their profile (www.Myspace.com/intothevoidband) and those are the ones I’ll focus on. Manic thrash with bleak personal lyrics and, a fairly violent image (rifles and rounds) saturate their profile and their CD. “Disorder” features a cool bass intro before breaking down into noise rock and thrash. Cameron sings “Can you see the truth, something deep inside you, controlled by your mind?” before giving way to Cody’s incessant soloing. The solos appear on pretty much each song, and I think if they had another guitarist the solos wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb on the songs. “It Never Changes” could be about ITV’s worldview, or something (Cameron sings “living the same way day after day, it all stays the same”), but it is not about the tempo of this song; the song breaks down into slow, heavy riffage before climaxing in a veritable orgasm of speed metal. Sorry for that. “Be The One” has cool, quirky sounding riffs to open, before breaking down into the hardcore. Lyrics? Cody sings “Be the one, the only one/who tries the best, and kills the rest” – ok. This song features the solo noodling as a kind of ambient noise in parts (the start), and I think that’s cool. “E.G.A.” opens with trippy-spooky guitar/cymbal rides/and even cool wind noise before starting in with the metal. While most metal acts these days forgo singing their lyrics in any intelligible manner (growlcore), Cody’s vocals are gnarly (yeah, I’m bringing that word back!) yet for the most part easily understood and recorded with little or no effects. The most surprising thing about the overall sound is that this IS a three-piece metal band. They may in the future take on an additional guitarist to round out the sound, but from what I’ve heard on the CD (nicely done at Fairmont’s Beyond Sanity Productions) they don’t really need to have one. I think it would give them something to kind of play the solos over, though. I can’t imagine who the target of the band’s seemingly threatening imagery might be, but the CD opens with “See You Pay” and closes with “Disposable Friends” so read between the lines, maybe. Into The Void is doing a series of shows in February, and if you like to hear bands with a more hardcore punk feel to their metal stylings, you might wanna catch these guys out somewhere. --- Nick2