Awesome screamo - hardcore doesn't necessarily have to come from the States or Scandinavia. DISTANCE IN EMBRACE can firmly prove this rebuttal with their fourth album "the best is yet to come"! The 6 powerful yet melodic songs hit hard, and in this way, the 4 guys from East Westphalia have nothing to hide from anyone. On top of that, this impressive singing, sometimes screaming, sometimes crystal clear, allows the Mindeners to easily keep up with big names in their genre like RAISED FIST, REFUSED, AT THE DRIVE IN, or BOYSETSFIRE!
So much for a factual analysis, now for my emotional reaction: *WOW*!!! This album with its 23 minutes of hardcore punch is absolutely amazing and is therefore on constant rotation for me!!! And rightly so!!! I want more, more, more...!
However, 6 songs are definitely too few for an album! As soon as the CD starts, the 6 songs are already over, and the awesome songs are correspondingly brief. I would have wished for another 6 songs :)
This doesn't change the fact that the professional video included on the CD is also great. The booklet, however, is a bit too uninspired for my taste; they could have done more with it.
Otherwise, "the best is yet to come" would have reached a full score without batting an eye, but as it stands, it gets "only" 8.5 points.
However, I do have one more note! DISTANCE IN EMBRACE have a serious problem, in my opinion! The guys, as mentioned, come from Minden. Minden is a tiny little town, at the end of the world. Minden is dead or at least was dead. In the last few months, something has actually happened there, not just because of DISTANCE IN EMBRACE. Despite its small-town status, there was a very good (punk rock) music scene there 15-20 years ago, when Minden still had the FKK (where I broke my collarbone at the NEUROTIC ARSEHOLES concert) and the VANS WARPED TOUR made a stop by the Weser river (Kanzlersweide). But Minden is just not Berlin, Hamburg, or the Ruhr area. Despite over 400 concerts in 9 years, I had not heard of DISTANCE IN EMBRACE before, and that is sad, but also their problem! If DISTANCE IN EMBRACE wants to make it big (not all bands have this goal), they have the quality in my opinion, then they need to get out of the small town and into the big city!
