Victory Records
2004
Our Gangs Dark Oath
About This Album
Judging from the group shot on the back of Our Gangs Dark Oath, Aiden weren't always the eyeliner-heavy, gothed-out rockers with a penchant for morose lyrics and song titles that they'd become by their 2005 Victory debut. At one point in time, it seems they were just five normal punk rockers who happened to like horror movies. However, what they could become with the right budget, desire, and fashion consultant is certainly hinted at throughout the disc. Aiden offer up a competent, if not slightly generic, dose of post-hardcore with a dark punk edge that relies on a vocal assault that aligns surging singing bits with shrieking back vocals. But instead of coming off as straight-up classicist screamo, the habitually distraught guttural attacks manage to be forgettable enough that the group sounds more like the younger cousins of My Chemical Romance or AFI who just happened to be weaned in a screamo scene. Will Franco has a hardcore voice that at times resembles a much tougher, adolescent version of Davey Havok. Representative of the album, "I Set My Friends on Fire" is a perfect example of this marriage of images; an onslaught of abrasive growls drives the song into a whispering sample of a speaker that blends into Franco emotively singing on top of a reappearance of the growls.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,7 and 8)

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