SINGLE REVIEW: PASSENGERS - FACE OF JANUS
‘Face of Janus’ is the second single from Lancaster quintet ‘Passengers’ following their strong debut ‘Boundaries’ earlier in the year. Blending the heavy swinging guitar riffs of djent, with the raw aggression of metal-core, ‘Passengers’ aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel, but they are bringing a welcome breath of fresh air to a style which has begun to grow stale in recent years. ‘Boundaries’ was an enjoyable and promising debut, but just stopped short of sounding generic and it would have been far too easy for the five piece to fall into the trap of writing songs of high quality but sounding indistinguishable from the countless other metal-core bands across the country. Fortunately, this is not the case as ‘Face Of Janus’ is the sound of a band who are building a stronger sense of personal identity within their music. Citing a wide range of influences from ‘The Dillinger Escape Plan’ to ‘Deftones’ with ‘Mastodon’ and Meshuggah’ thrown in between; ‘Passengers’ are able to explore a wide canvas of styles in order to be more creative and experimental. The use of synths play a stronger role in a way that harks back to early noughties bands such as ‘Celldweller’ whilst the djent guitar work maintains a harder contemporary edge. Whilst they have still to write a truly catchy singalong chorus that have helped to propel bands such as ‘Killswitch Engage’ and ‘Architects’ to the forefront of the genre, ‘Passengers’ have certainly nailed their aggressive mosh inducing verses and we are very intrigued to see how they continue to progress throughout their career.
