Released just a couple months ago, South Carolina hard rock band Broken Testimony burst onto the scene with their debut album, Holding On To Nothing. While the band’s youth and inexperience shows on occasion, this is a solid debut effort with plenty to build on, too.
Holding On To Nothing is buoyed by two fairly impressive tracks, “Blessing” and “Medusa”. Two of the heaviest songs on the record, these songs anchor the band and record as one to watch. Muscular modern hard rock in the vein of Breaking Benjamin, Alice In Chains, and even Chevelle is the name of the game here, and Broken Testimony pull it off well enough.
Another impressive track here is the nearly 6-minute long “Vitality”. Stunningly not overstaying its welcome, it’s a song that most bands of this genre just couldn’t pull off without going on about 90 seconds too long. The second half of the track impressively morphs into one seemingly influenced by the progressive metal of Tool – not a small thing.
While Holding On To Nothing isn’t necessarily a great album (you may get the feeling it could have been trimmed a bit, or even made into an EP), it is a solid start. Anchored by a few good songs, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Broken Testimony went on to do bigger things in the future.
