Review: “The Violence Sessions” by Kill The Imposter

Having pummeled the stages of Central Florida Metal Fest and Tampa DeathFest and played alongside heavy hitters such as Nile and Terrorizer, Orlando Florida quintet Kill The Imposter have had to spend some time working out who they are – and crutially – who they aren’t for their third release “The Violence Sessions“. The follow up to both 2019’s “The Decimation” and 2020’s “A Strain Of Agony” sees the band guided by the hand of vocalist Johnny Nobody, determined to stick to his New York Hardcore roots while assisting with the arrangements of the work of founding member and primary music writer Danny Arrieta (guitar), evolving riffs from a Beat Down Hardcore starting point. Nick Colvin (drums) then carries the aggressive speed and heavy grooves with Wilson Bembry (bass) both sharing a love of heavy lows and technical playing.

While in streaming services terms 7 tracks qualifies as an LP rather than an EP, “The Violence Sessions” clocks in at just over 22 minutes with the longest cut falling short of the 4 minute mark, which is pretty genre standard for a band coming to Deathcore from Hardcore roots. A trio of records since forming in 2018 confirms that they aren’t ones for sitting on their laurels and admiring their own work, the blades have been sharpened but not for the blunt force trauma of the brute that is opening cut “Broken Crown“, which smashes its way through every barricade, only stopping for some arty spoken word moments. It sounds thunderously huge while also being raw and abrasively edged. “Dongan Hills“, named after a place in Staten Island, New York that vocalist Nobody would take a train to and try to escape life, but he’d always end up getting in more trouble and has influences from The Acacia Strain as it muses eerily with haunting ambient melodic passages between skull crushing breakdowns.

Injecting a concrete slab of Groove Metal into the riffs, “Evil Ways” continues Nobody’s caustic vocal onslaught with Arrieta bringing some neat squeals to the riff turn around. That serves to inject some eerie, haunting qualities as well as to break up those bludgeoning rhythmic gymnastics and they continue into “False Prophet” with some lead layering that could see them evolving into Dealer territory if they were to take some of the breaks off. Increasing the tempo brings more life to “Mace” and you can’t help but feel that these tracks will be better live than they are on record and if the band had the opportunity to work with a better team for production, mixing and mastering that they would be able to capture more of their live energy on these recordings like lightening in a bottle. That being said, they save their best until last with “Unfit Coward” which sees Taylor Barber of Left To Suffer join for a double dragon vocal attack. The result is more involved riffage and samples to push the boundaries that much further with Emmure leanings and is a solid stand out [7/10]

Track listing

1. Broken Crown
2. Dongan Hills
3. Evil Ways
4. False Prophet
5. Mace
6. Suffer Alone
7. Unfit Coward (ft. Taylor Barber of Left To Suffer)

“The Violence Sessions” by Kill The Imposter is out 28th May 2021