Posthumous ep

The Banner are more on the metal side of the increasingly popular hardcore/metal hybrid. The five songs on their debut E.P., Posthumous, feature three slabs of loud-fast-rules hardcore, but even on these fairly standard tracks, the five-piece band's use of two guitarists (a comparative rarity in the minimalist standards of hardcore) gives them a thicker and more metal-edged sound, even though in lieu of standard lead and rhythm lines, Garrett Defalco and Kevin Manion mostly play the same hardcore riffs in unison. However, it's the album's opening and closing tracks that show the Banner's metallic roots: the opening "Outgunned" seriously wouldn't sound out of place on a King's X album, being a straight pop-metal song with some punk influences, but the closing "Trial By Fire" brings the two influences together in roughly equal doses, with Joey Southside's hectoring vocals deepening from the traditional hardcore bark to a metallic growl, and the rhythm section of drummer Chris Larsen and bassist Ian Mullen finding an equitable middle ground between the rat-a-tat speed of hardcore and metal's chunkier rhythms and slower tempos. These are the best songs on the album, and point toward a more interesting hardcore/metal hybrid in the Banner's future.