French metal outfit the
Old Dead Tree are a peculiar blend of progressive rock concepts, death metal dynamics and surprisingly pop-oriented tunes. The song titles posit the tunes as an introduction (the metalcore growler "Out of Breath") followed by three song cycles of interconnected tunes collectively known as "The Lost Boy," "Down" and "The Sad Fairytale." The story lines, if any, are obscure enough to be safely ignored in favor of paying closer attention to how the quartet blend the instrumental attack of European black metal to Manuel Munoz's unaccented and oddly sweet-toned emo-kid vocal styles. (Even at those points where Munoz affects a death metal growl, he sounds like an enthusiastic teenager aping his heroes.) The results are too melodic and pop-oriented to qualify as screamo, but the musical assault may be slightly too hardcore to appeal to the average Hot Topic shopper. For anyone finding themselves somewhere in the middle between
Hawthorne Heights and
Children of Bodom, however,
Perpetual Motion is an unexpectedly good time. ~ Stewart Mason