Attack Attack! - Someday Came Suddenly Review

Attack Attack! Someday Came Suddenly

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full review

Tracklist:
1. Hot Grills, and High Tops
2. Stick Stickly
3. Bro, Ashley's Here
4. Shred, White, and Blue
5. Party Foul
6. What Happens If I Can't Check My Myspace When
We Get There
7. Interlude
8. The People's Elbow
9. Kickin' Wing, Animal Doctor
10. Dr. Shavargo, Pt. 3
11. Catfish Soup
12. Outro

Release Date: 11/11/2008

user rating

2.6
average

Chart.

other reviews

McDiggitz (4)
I always wondered what would happen if Norma Jean raped Daft Punk....

Matthew Dippel (3.5)
Attack Attack! Where you at?! Oh. Warped Tour? Shocker....

Nick Habisch (3.5)
A catchy, fun album, that while not anywhere close to metalcore's elite, is still worth a listen....

Caleb McAlpine CONTRIBUTOR (1.5)
Crustaceaos metalcore...

fromtheinside (1.5)
What you are about to read......................... is complete fiction....

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On 4 Lists

3.0
good

Garrett Wixom USER (8 Reviews)

2008-11-14 | 229 comments | 5,796 views

Summary: Imagine if Enter Shikari was more screamo and less annoying (and less British).

6 of 7 thought this review was well written

Rise records has been signing bands like crazy. Frankly their ratio of original bands compared to cliché ridden isn’t too good, but luckily even some of the clichéd ones still have something genuine to bring to the table. Case in point is Attack Attack!. The best way to describe these Ohio guys is their contemporaries. The sound this band churned takes the metal part of Sky Eats Airplane and mixes it with the poppy sensibilities of Handshakes and Highfives, not to mention a little chaos from the likes of I Set My Friends On Fire (in a good way). The reason I mention these three bands is because one of the core components to each of these bands are synth-beats. Yes, as easy as it is to find a band that combines screaming with synthesizers today I can guarantee that AA can do it better.

The synthesizers are a make or break style that can be either pretentious and obnoxious or interesting and tactful. AA manages to fall in the latter as their synth isn’t always looping around attempting to draw attention like a drunken frat boy, usually you’ll find the synth twinkling in the background of the more melodic sections which, I find, adds to the effect of the clean vocals. Tracks like “Stick Stickly” feature the instrument more strongly but the way the CD is mastered makes it so the synth blends well.

Apart from that you’ll also find that the guys can manage to use the other instruments effectively. The drummer is noticeably capable with his set as he bounces and weaves across the snares and cymbals with notable finesse. The bass drum gets pounded quite a bit while equally never going into the territory of excessive.

The guitar work is loopy and roars fairly well with the drums. The guitars tend to work with the drum like a tag-team effort to attempt to throw your neck out from headbanging (or whatever you choose to do, personally I like to mix between whips and bangs). The guitars do well to keep loose and shred while always keeping in touch with the mood at hand. If there’s any band I would compare the guitar work to is UnderOath. The guitars pummel and press but slide and shudder with perfect patterns of dissonance and melody, quite a feat.

The vocals are mostly a shrill banshee of a scream that can only be described as the audio equivalent to a buttered piece of sand paper. It will smoothly grate your ears just the way you’d want any high pitched scream to come. Much less common is the clean vocals which are both sugary sweet and fairly melodic, they get the job done well but, for some reason, often these are the lines of the vocals the get morphed and mutated by the electronics. There’s also an odd but effective use of punkish yelling/announcement speech used in “Kickin, Wing, Animal Doctor” seems out of place but after listening again I can’t imagine the song any other way. The lyrics are Christian themed like many bands out there, you’ll hear a lot of capitalized “He’s” in the songs which is kind of unoriginal (like akissforjersey lyrics almost) but it’s always better than the alternative of F-bombs dropped every five seconds (I’m looking at you Dance Gavin Dance).

The songs conform to a style of hard electro-hardcore that is very individual actually. You won’t mix these guys up with anybody already out there (although because of this it is guaranteed that several people will be cloning this band in the future). The songs fit together and flow in a great method, they all feature the bands distinctive fingerprints but each song has its own niche and interesting sections that will helps them stick out from one another.

This CD will be awesome for anyone new to AA scene; it’s a great entry into any metalcore/hardcore/scream library. Fans will still be endeared by the bands perfect mixture of hard and sweet. This is a good way to start the end of your year. Everything these guys add to the song makes it better. The only real complaint here is that this is probably a little overproduced. It’s slick as a wet bar of soap but I wish they were just a little grittier.

Personal favorites:
Shred, White, and Blue
Kickin’ Wing, Animal Doctor

Catfish Soup
Dr. Shavargo Pt. 3

Pros:
+ Their sound is extremely tight
+ Every instrument more than fills its role
+ Great use of synth
+ The guitars are take-no-prisoners style

Cons:
-The album’s a little overproduced
-The clean vocals get tweaked a little too often
(please note these both contain the words “a little.” These are the only gripes I managed to come up with.)

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