y friends have all formed the collective opinion that Bane is the worst band ever. Now, as hard as I have tried to understand the basis for their argument (without actually hearing the band), I just couldn’t. I needed to experience the horror for myself. Unfortunately, when they played this area , I missed them due to my having to work (or some other excuse). Now, I’m sitting here, realizing that Bane is nearly as bad as my friends have said. My first major attack is their vocalist- he sounds a bit like Ray Of Today (from, you know...Youth of Today. Clever name, huh? yeah.) if Ray had made a quick stop to the dentist to have a few teeth pulled prior to recording his vocals in the studio. His words are half shouted/screamed/talked, and, in a not-so-pleasant way, he elongates the ends of all his sentences so the words trail off annoyingly over the music.

Bane also decided that gang vocals would be appropriate for key moments in certain songs, but they end up sounding so...typical. The only real redeeming quality Bane has (in the vocal department, at least) are the few moments when the singers voice is distorted simply because that is the only time in the duration of this album when he isn’t annoying me. Musically, Bane are actually fairly good, in a generic sort of way. They manage to take any typical straight-edge hardcore sounding chord progression and throw in other elements, creating something that doesn't break new ground, but is more listen-able than any other quasi-generic hardcore band. At least Bane are rather catchy (particularly the surprising, extra long finger pointing breakdown(*) in “Fuck What You Heard”) and even though I do not typically enjoy Straight Edge hardcore, the slight changes they make to the “Straight Edge Hardcore” formula keep things interesting.

At worst, Bane are as generic as they hint at being. Most of the songs on “It All Comes Down To This” are a blur; nothing really stands out as better than okay.

So my friends were about sixty percent right, i suppose. They aren't the worst band ever, but the next time they pass through on tour, I won’t make any special arrangements to see them. Unless, of course, they play with Converge again...

*(a) if you search for ‘straight edge band pictures’ or something of the sort, you will see at least one depicting a kid with x-ed up hands and someone will be pointing their finger in the air. I promise you.

(b) I’m not even sure Bane is straight edge.