Life Long TragedyThese Californians have taken a winding route on their way to delivering this, their latest album. The most recent release was the split that they did with the awesome Sabertooth Zombie, before that it was the split with Final Fight, and before that it was their first full length, which was aptly titled "Destined For Anything." Each successive release showing a shift in song writing, although not as much as one would guess.
Now I am FAR from an afficionado of LLT, shit I'm barely a casual fan but from what I've heard in their past, they've always had a very Modern Life Is War feel to their writing and this album really isn't all that much different. The beginning of "Hey Death" sounds a lot like Modern Life Is War's "The Outsiders," which isn't a bad thing but how can you call this some groundbreaking achievement? And quite frankly, I can't see how people can call this experimental or progressive in any way. It seems like once a band that was semi-proficient on their instruments, playing fast, metallic hardcore start to become better musicians, they start to get influences outside of their respective genre and all of a sudden it's some groundbreaking band. They start to use different tempos, phrasings, perhaps even keys, etc., but in the grand scheme of things it's really nothing new.
Now that isn't meant to completely tear down the 12 songs that I'm sure these guys poured themselves into 100%, but I just can't get comprehend why this album is being heralded as much as it is. Musically it is decent, and definitely an enjoyable listen but it isn't an album that would garner many replays from me.
One of the most talked about things about this album is the production, more specifically the guitar tone. It's good yes, but I'm just not hearing what others are because this shit sounds pretty standard to me. But you say, "Oh my God, the guitar tone is so good and sticks out so much!" So fucking what, the emphasis of 95% of all recordings is the guitar, it always gets the most presence in the mix. The one thing I really don't like about this recording is the drums, they sound faint as shit and really weak. The bass tone isn't bad but it's not all that great either.
It's beginning to get to the point where you can just look at an album and just know who did the artwork. It seems J.Bannon has gotten comfortable with using the same type of layout, over and over again. It seems like every album has no band name on the front, just a design, then it folds open to display the name of the album across the two adjoining pages, which then fold open to display the lyrics over four panels. Outside of the Pulling Teeth album (which featured artwork other than Bannon's) and the Shipwrecked album, I haven't been too kin on the layouts. Too much of the same for me. And the main thing that really pisses me off about this layout is there is plenty of room to display the lyrics in easy to read fashion, but noooo let's make it as small as possible and then on top of it, let's put in sloppy hand writing text. GENIUS! And that is the reason why I didn't talk about the lyrics, I have 20/20 vision and I still can't say that shit, I am not about to grab a magnifying glass to read that shit.
Rating: 3/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: "Hey Death" & "The Bottomless Hole"
Synopsis: Solid release but the hype of the album killed it for me, I hate to say. To me, they're good at what they do but don't do much to separate themselves from their peers, I guess they can fill that void that MLIW will be leaving after their breakup though.
As always, be the judge for yourself. If you like what you hear, buy it!