Figure Of Merit, a band from the USA that released their debut EP somewhere at the end of the nineties with which they gained quite some respect in the underground over the years, it was not until 2001 that the band came up with their debut album with the title "Shaping The Antistrain" an album that was more mature and definitely a huge step forward to what the band is all about, but a real breakthrough was forced with 2003"s "Vatic", at the time released on a smaller label. On musical terms the band is balancing between a lot of (undisclosed) musical genres. Therefore it is really hard to classify the band under one term, yet these kind of bands are mostly referred to screamo, mathcore, art metal, sludge or whatever. (Source: Review on Vampire-Magazine)