Review Summary: Rather unoriginal and lacking some creativity. But Ashes Remain's "What I've Become" is enjoyable, if passable.
I’m pretty sure we all know that recently, rock and metal bands have become rather uncreative in their sound within the past decade or so. Yeah, occasionally we get the overall enjoyable album that gives out more of a sense of originality with their music, but the issue is that most recent bands have never really gotten to the point on what they actually want to sound like. Ashes Remain is the perfect example for that. They just don’t know what they want to sound like that stands out among the rest of the more popular bands out there, so what do they do? They just end up piggybacking off of other bands that people have heard of in an attempt to try to make a name for themselves. However, I’m not saying that Ashes Remain is a terrible band. In fact,
What I’ve Become for the most part is decent, if passable. It does have its ups and downs, and the band does occasionally get it right. And when they do get it right, they do a damn good job of it.
The one thing that is noticeable other than its unoriginality is that
What I’ve Become does occasionally have quite a few good tunes. The vocals themselves are, interestingly enough, pretty good, as they are the only part of the album that is original. I myself can’t really recall any vocalist that is close to what vocalist Josh Smith sounds like. Probably the closest voice I can think of is Red’s Michael Barnes but even that may be a little too far off. Smith is rather soft in his diction and doesn't really pound the words along with the music. Ironically enough, he could try harder. The reason being is that he makes the songs have a lighter side to them too often, especially on the heavier songs, and the instrumentation makes the songs feel heavier than they really are. Songs like
End of Me and
Take it Away, while extremely catchy, could've had some heavier vocals in the background.
Unbroken actually ends up having Smith screaming in the background after the second chorus and you start to wonder why he couldn't have done something like that in the other tracks. As for the instrumentation throughout the whole album, it’s neither really groundbreaking nor fantastic. It’s not bad by any means; it’s just that the rest of the band isn't really amazingly talented. They’re good at what they do, but you've heard it before and you just wish to listen that peaks your interest.
The songs themselves are the same deal, but in a sense, most of them are rather enjoyable.
Keep Me Breathing and
End of Me are among some of the best pieces on this as both are extremely catchy and might as well get stuck in your head within the week.
Without You is probably the most original song throughout the album, as it’s a piano ballad for the first two thirds of the song. In a way, it probably would've been better if the piano would've played throughout the whole song, but it’s still very nice.
Change My Life is probably the one song in which the both the vocals and the instrumentation fit almost perfectly to create a really nice ballad that just hits it home, and it works like clockwork. The lyrics themselves have a lot of spiritual meaning to them, which is something that should always be in the music of a Christian group. The lyrical interpretation shows itself rather clearly and it should be pretty obvious that these guys are singing about God.
But, with the good comes the bad, and that’s where the album drops like a lead balloon. The unoriginality in this album is unbelievably constant. Every single song has some form of a band that you’ve heard of in them.
On My Own is essentially a Skillet rip-off, both musically, and lyrically. It contains the typical string orchestration that you’re used to hearing in bands such as Skillet and Red and the lyrics are something you’ve heard before.
Everything Good contains the sound that typical worship bands like Kutless and Andy Needham Band contains while
Inside of Me is among the most forgettable song throughout the whole album.
I Won’t Run Away is a surprisingly dull ending song throughout the whole album. It doesn’t hit the emotion hard enough as it should for a closing song and it also finds itself on the “snooze-fest” pile. If anything, the whole album feels like a new Kutless release.
Quality over quantity is today’s lesson. Not saying that Ashes Remain wants to make a huge profit off of this music, but if they really want to make themselves shine, then they have to create something better.
What I’ve Become is just another passable album that you will enjoy at first, but will just forget later. But even so, it does have some good stuff in it, and what is good in here is very good. The band itself isn’t really talented but they have potential. The whole record itself isn’t an entire waste of time and you may find some songs in here you might like. But if you want something that more worth your time, or groundbreaking, then you’re just going to find this album to be nothing more than a bland, tired, and deprived album.
Recommended Songs:
Keep Me Breathing
Without You
Unbroken
End of Me
Change My Life
