Saint [The] Sinner, Joker’s Grin Review

By Ellen Fairbairn

First impressions, truthfully: I think its fantastic! I really do love this track. Joker’s Grin is electro tinged post-metalcore with more breakdowns than a teenage girl. Definitely check it out if you’re a fan of We Came As Romans and Attack Attack (USA). Even the name of the band, Saint [The] Sinner, really says a hell of a lot about their music, especially the newest edition from their EP release.

 With the upbeat synth sporting a damn good dance anthem, along with the well placed clean vocals giving an almost innocent vibe, paired with the forceful thrashing of heavy bass drops and enough screamo to form a small puddle where your brain once was, proving all in all, a great contrast of a saint/sinner scenario happening throughout. The only main criticism I could really give is that there are no real deviations from your typical post-hardcore/metalcore setup, but I hear that’s quite common these days, so who am I to judge? In my opinion, if Saint [The] Sinner churned out an entire album with similar sounds to Joker’s Grin I’d be a very happy bunny indeed.

 The apparent downfall of post-metalcore genre would be getting the balance of the light and the heavy just right, but they manage to pull it of with this song, albeit with blatantly obvious contrasts between sounds, that perhaps seasoned veterans to the field could make a bit more subtle. To me, Joker’s Grin shows signs of great promise for the band and their fresh-out-the-box-let’s-melt-some-faces approach was really refreshing to hear. In terms of technique and skill from the band themselves, it was really surprising to see that they were fairly new to the scene. Given the right type of media coverage and promotion, Joker’s Grin, as part of their debut EP, Da Vinci’s Demise, could be their way out of the UK’s musically dismal south coast.

 So basically, Joker’s Grin is one hell of an anthem for anyone looking for something new to pit to, and Saint [The] Sinner show a lot of potential to be absolutely epic at some point (hopefully) in the near future.