Review Summary: BS, Inc.
Ask any Evans Blue fan how the band’s more recent material stacks up against their first two albums, and they’ll probably give one of two answers. Either they’ll tear off on a rant about how the band died when Kevin Matisyn was fired, or they’ll stare at you blankly as if to say “You mean they were around before 2009?” It’s true that the drastic change in style brought about by 2009’s self-titled album didn’t sit well with a lot of fans, but it was a decent if not particularly groundbreaking listen, as was 2012’s
Graveyard of Empires. However, both records left some doubt as to whether Evans Blue could continue sounding like this forever without turning stale. Well, here we are with fifth album
Letters from the Dead answering the above question… and it’s a resounding ‘no’.
Usually, I’d make some comment about this album being generic or one of a few synonyms thereof (there can’t be many, because ‘generic’ is really the only word that gets used in this context, but I digress). But that’d be unfair; after all, few could argue that Dan Chandler-era Evans Blue has been anything but generic before this point, and this album doesn’t differ too wildly from either of its predecessors in terms of style. No, the main problem with
Letters from the Dead has nothing to do with how generic it may be; it’s that it feels lifeless in just about every way.
Although there was nothing particularly wrong with Chandler’s voice on either the self-titled or
Graveyard…, this album sees his performance hitting record (no pun intended) lows. When he sing-yells
“Just one more time, f***ing pick a side!” on “Just Once”, the end result isn’t so much aggressive as comical. And unfortunately, this is a good representation of how he sounds throughout the whole record: tired, off-key and above all, forced. The other band members sound as if they’re playing it incredibly safe here, falling back on almost every alternative metal trope in the book to produce an album with no sense of passion behind it. They do attempt to go one heavier at points, as on “End of Me” (complete with hilariously bad screaming in the chorus), but heaviness in itself does not a good album make. I want to say these songs are listenable in themselves, as I seem to do with every album I review poorly. But the truth is, if it’s alternative metal you’re after, this is the last place to which I’d direct you.
By now, Evans Blue’s fans have surely realised that hoping for
any change in the band’s sound, let alone a return to the Matisyn-era sound, is more or less futile. The band could’ve gone in any number of directions for
Letters from the Dead, but chose to do much the same thing they’d already done for two albums. Even so, a band doesn’t have to completely overhaul its sound in order to make passable music; as long as it’s obvious their heart is in it, they’re fine. I have to believe Evans Blue enjoyed making this record, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been so eager to release it. If that’s true though, I’d expect something with much more soul than what we’re given here.
