13 is the debut studio album from Russian act Vismut. The band plays a style of metalcore that is at times progressive or symphonic but also draws on electronic elements on occasion. While I don’t think either of these plays a major part in Vismut’s sound, they do help to flavour the band’s metalcore sound a bit beyond the norms of the genre without becoming overly dominating, something I feel is a turn-off for fans of extreme music in the case of the electronic stuff, although I do think these elements are used tastefully on 13. Now before I begin I want to say that I don’t make a secret that I think metalcore is one style of metal that quickly got stale, at least among the bigger names in the genre. I find it difficult to encounter bands with much of an identity of their own. Most of the time if you stuck a metalcore band on and didn’t tell me who it was I probably couldn’t tell you even if it was one of the really known names. They may as well be the same band playing the same song for the amount of similar screaming vocals and guitar breakdowns I hear. In Vismut’s case they could easily fall into this category as well, since they have these elements in abundance as much as any other, but they at least go a bit further with some occasional progressive twists and electronic elements to keep their music from falling to that level of boredom. That said I do find Vismut’s debut to be a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand they’ve produced some interesting enough music, with some real surprises within the tracks, especially the ballad Не нужно ничего, but it also contains several issues within the overall sound. The most prominent of these is the tendency to every so often make it sound as if the music is skipping, which is just plain annoying, no way to put it nicely. I’m also not fond of the clean vocals used within the album. While not a bad case of singing at all I’ve ultimately got to consider that these vocals are being used in a metal context, and they just don’t fit in Vismut’s music. One minute there’s some much more than above average harsh vocals and then the clean vocals start and time after time it kills Vismut’s music dead in the water. The same sadly can be said of other bands within the style, so Vismut is hardly alone in this sense. These are the sort of vocals I’d expect to hear more in pop punk or mainstream indie rock acts than in any kind of metal. To be honest it’s usually the vocals that make me dislike most metalcore. What can I say, I want my clean vocals in metal to be well...metal, if you know what I mean. I’m not going to hold this choice against Vismut, they seem to be following what is expected of their style and that’s fair enough, however their music proves time and time again that this is a band that generally has something going for them, and I’d like to hear it taken to the next level. There are more positive things than negative ones about 13 though. Clean vocals aside the band is a tight unit, and although I’m not the biggest metalcore fan in the world 13 was a very listenable experience. There are great riffs present in the album and there are some songs I’d saying are pushing towards the high grade, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t a have a fair way to go before I’d be really impressed with what Vismut is doing. I can’t however deny that unlike most metalcore I didn’t feel the need to switch this album off after a couple of tracks. The issues I outlined above are a major hindrance to my overall enjoyment of 13 though so I can’t justify giving it higher than an above average score at best. Without the irritating skipping sounds I may have bumped my score up a notch despite my issues with the clean vocals. But for now Vismut is producing a good sound, just one with some bugs to be ironed out. I’d recommend metalcore fans to check them out definitely, since a metalcore fan will likely have more appreciation for the clean vocals than I did. Outside of the genre’s fanbase 13 may have a bit more appeal than most, but ultimately I don’t see this converting many non-metalcore fans to the style. Prog fans may find something to like though. 6.3/10