The fellas in frayed ends are back at it again, and it's rough. From bad production to uninspiring vocals, there's a lot that needs to be dissected here. The biggest problem is the vocals. Whether intentionally or not, he just sounds like he doesn’t want to be there. The main vocalist feels like he is struggling to want to be here for this band. He sounds flat a lot of the time and seems to lack passion behind his words. It feels like a student being forced to do his homework he was supposed to do last night, and so he does the bare minimum to get by. The EO is called Strived, and I feel like compared to their last EP, he isn't striving to do better. Now the guest vocals do a better job of showing urgency and passion for their craft. It really highlights how the main vocals are still not up to the task of fronting a hardcore band. The band itself is different because half of the time it just sounds like they are off beat and not playing well together. The drums feel sloppy, and the riffs feel bland. The bass actually doesn't do any harm and sounds good. Then the production here is bad. They all sound like they were recorded in separate studios and spliced it all together. The volume on some instruments seemed higher than others, and it just felt messy. Towards the end of this episode, the band really started to shape up and sound good, but it feels like this is a band just for fun for these guys and nothing they want to do seriously. If this is them trying to be serious, oh dear, they got a lot of rework they need to do.