Although this EP only has 11 minutes of music, it will wear you down if you're not watching! Training For Utopia delivers 4 pieces of brutal hardcore, combined with killer guitar riffs in the likes of Focal Point (not a coincidence, since some of Focal Points members joined TFU) and sometimes even scream-along parts, which will eventually get to you once you get used to the brutal hard TFU sound.

The first song, 'The Falling Cycle', kicks off with lots of screams which are a combination of Jason Stinson (Overcome) and Shawn Jonas (Zao, 'The Splinter Shards...' album). It has this great part with a kind of ZAO-like sound and spoken word (distorted). Then the hammering goes on. TFU keeps sending these 'hypnotic' grooves to you which just can't leave your head and make you wanna jump up and down (esp. the third song, 'Pretty Picture Of Lies'). This isn't just about the first song on the EP, the other ones also have this feeling. Instead of backing vocals, TFU uses backing screamings a lot and this has a great result. 

The third song, 'Pretty Picture Of Lies', ends with the noise exploding in stereo, a great effect (although it's weird for the ears).

The fourth song, 'Thoughtless Reminders', has some great muffled guitars and even some metal licks here and there.

'Dead Signal', the 2nd song, has a very long intro but is as great as the other songs.

All these qualities combined results in a great mini-album. The fact that this EP DOESN'T have weird, instrumental songs like the full-length 'Plastic Soul Impalement' does, is a great advantage. In my opinion, it's 8.5 out of 10 points!

Martijn

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