Oh Lord, where to begin. This album gets off to a great start, with a top piece of drumming in the opening track ‘Breaking Point’ that really got my hopes up, making me believe I might end up as pleased with this album as the akwardly chubby, black-hoodie-wearing me was with the band’s 2005 release The Poison. I was wrong.
The whole album just goes downhill from that nifty tom-filled drum opener, dragging you into what is essentially 44 minutes of my new favourite metal new sub-genre – ‘mediocrity metal’, a movement started by…well, this album. You very quickly realise that almost every riff starts on an open bottom string and since this band is not one to deviate from a minor or blues minor key, all riffs end up sounding more or less the same and just as disappointing as the last. Then, in some effort to bring the songs back up, there are what seems to be attempts at catchy chorus lines, that in fact, are not catchy at all, comprising of melodramatic lyrics that, for a ‘metal’ release, lacks balls with boring harmonies to match. There’s very little in terms of dynamics besides the odd build up and it appears that each song was written to the same formula which makes listening to this one dreadfully predictable and the metal equivalent of background music.
The guitar solo in ‘Riot’ is a highlight but not worth sitting through the whole album for. I’m sure this one will again please plenty of angsty, black-hoodie wearing teengers but it will no doubt embarrass many people like myself, who shamefully admit they once enjoyed this band.
Sony
2/5
Reviewer: Thomas Peasley