This extended play was released on May 10^th, 2019 on Facedown Records.

It’s always cool seeing a band from my home state make it big. Outside of the niche genres and community, we have a bit of talent, but as far as the hard rock spectrum goes, Alesana and He Is Legend might be the biggest names to come out of North Carolina. Charlotte-based My Epic is following their footsteps with their supercharged hard rock in the form of their new extended play Violence. The band played under an imprint of Facedown Records (Dreamt Music) until 2013, when they moved to the major label, and haven’t looked back since.

Something I noticed was that the band puts out extended plays at a more consistent rate than full albums. Their last three releases were all EPs, the last album released being Behold. I was curious as to why this was, so I listened to their discography before this release and understood immediately why they went this route. The energy and songwriting is so concentrated on Violence, as well as Ultraviolet and Viscera (the past EPs mentioned) and contains virtually no filler, where Behold worked well cohesively but had some down moments in its runtime. Even though the concept behind Violence and Ultraviolet are connected (the band has said that these two projects are companion pieces), they don’t sacrifice the short runtime for experimenting, save the odd track “Spit and Blood”, which resembles a lo-fi dream with some warped vocal effects and ambiguous lyrics. “Tsuneni” displays another off-the-wall production choice, but it is a bit easier on the ears than “Spit and Blood”.

Where Ultraviolet dealt with a more laid-back approach to the band’s vocals, Violence blows it out of the water with its themes of anger and struggling with faith. Even though the instrumentation is much more dialed up than the EP’s predecessor, there is virtually no screaming on the record. Aaron Stone pours his heart out over the concepts of hate, vitriol, empathy, and many more emotions. The feature by Cory Brandan of Norma Jean on “White Noises” was also well-placed; his intensity brought a lot to the song via their traded verses and choruses. As far as the ability of the actual vocals come, Stone kills it on this record. Soaring highs along with a sense of urgency in the verses makes for a very pleasant listen.

I didn’t give this band much attention until now, and they definitely have put out a solid release in Violence. The strong vocal delivery, penmanship, and overall musicianship of the group suggests they can take the next step and be talked about with some of the heavyweights in the hard rock community. Here’s to hoping they can add to North Carolina’s lacking résumé.

Rating: 7/10

Favorite Songs: “White Noises”, “Spit It Out”, “Bad Accent”