TIME IN MALTA

Band: TIME IN MALTA

Genres: Punk / Post-Rock / Melodic Hardcore / Post-Hardcore / Post-Metal / Grunge / Sludge
Related artists: Burn It Down, LoveLikeFire and Rescue Me.
Country: San Francisco, California USA
Years Active: 1997-2004
Song: "This Revolution"
Album: "A Second Engine"
Year: 2002
For fans of: Snapcase, Boy Sets Fire, Beloved, Raised Fist, (old) Codeseven, Deftones, Fear Before The March Of Flames, Thursday,  In Pieces, Thrice, Helmet, Vaux, Tigershark, Forstella Ford, Ignite, This Day Forward, 311, Nous Étions and The Procedure.

Label(s): State Of Grace / Reflections Records / Equal Vision Records / Escape Artist Records / 
This post's artist is from the November 2015 Mix. This is track #5.

You can download: the January Mix#1 right here or get the new February 2016 Mix#2 here.

TIME IN MALTA. I'm pretty sure my brother introduced me to these guys back in the early 2000s. I've only ever jammed 2002's 'A Second Engine' and on revisiting it for this review I've had to move a few more files into my "best of" folder that should have been there over a decade ago. The band instrumentally sounds like In Pieces, Beloved and Helmet while vocally sounding like Snapcase and Helmet (again). They are at their best when they really bring the heavy stuff (check out the very end of "What We've Become") but I must say the injection of dark, twinkly melodies are more than welcome. The unrelenting bludgeoning that "This is Our Voice" releases upon the listener to begin the album is great, but never really repeated. "All is Said and Done" has a lot of semi-melodic vocals going on and the song ends up sounding a helluva lot like Helmet during their 'Aftertaste' phase. "Azure" is prog-rock/post-hardcore and has some pretty good clean singing but the best song here is "This Revolution" which mixes everything good about the band but polishes it off in a manner that is the most metallic hardcore of all of their songs and is the only track that meets the ferocity of "This is Our Voice".

It's strange to listen to the difference between 1999's 'Construct and Demolish' and 2004's 'Alone in the Alone' as there is almost none because TIME IN MALTA's sound barely changed. Sure it was slightly more honed by 2004 but the style and sound are unmistakably similar and continue the soft/hard dynamic, generally focusing on the heavier. Neither album reached out to me and both seem relatively passable especially the new album, but perhaps that was because the official music video is cheesy as hell and made me cringe a little while watching it.

I'm focusing on a big post for tomorrow and as TIME IN MALTA only takes up a minuscule portion of my musical history I haven't checked for download links, dug up much information nor invested much, if any, time in any release other than 'A Second Engine' so this entire review is pretty much a wash. So yeah...that's it.

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DISCOGRAPHY
Click )==>here<==( to download two of the band's releases in mp3/wma form.

1999 - Construct and Demolish cd/12"EP

2000 - Identify. Persist. Transcend. 7"EP (got this? please upload it!)

2002 - A Second Engine cdLP
2002 - Breathe In split cd/10"/12"LP (got this? please upload it!)

2004 - Alone With the Alone cdLP (got this? please upload it!)

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(2002) TIME IN MALTA - "This Revolution" (from 'A Second Engine')

(2002) TIME IN MALTA - "This is Our Voice" (from 'A Second Engine')

(2002) TIME IN MALTA - "All Said and Done" (from 'A Second Engine')

(1999) TIME IN MALTA - "Impasse" (from 'Construct and Demolish')

(2003) TIME IN MALTA - "Bare Witness" (from 'Alone in the Alone')

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TIME IN MALTA out of print mp3/wma download of 'Construct and Destroy' & 'A Second Engine'

(download here)
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