In the Disaster

Springing from Los Angeles's seemingly bottomless well of metal upstarts, A Love Ends Suicide defy easy categorization. The band--a quintet consisting of two sets of brothers--embellish an intense emo metal-core sound with guitar pyrotechnics surprisingly reminiscent of Eddie Van Halen. In perhaps a nod to the band's hopeful moniker, the guitars--attributed to Oscar Cairoli and Matt Garcia--add a ray of classic metal glory to an otherwise somber affair.
The tracks on the band's debut, IN THE DISASTER, also offer another surprise: the occasional hummable chorus. Two singers--John Cairoli and bass player Emir Abdo--switch off between the former's yelps and growls and the latter's melodic refrains, most notably on the disc's third track "Of Day Dream and Fantasy." The one-two punch keeps the underground intensity at the forefront while offering an olive branch to the MTV crowd.