Review Summary: Not just mindless metalcore.
My Hero is Me is a metalcore band right out of the Old North State (lol). The Cry Wolf Broadcast has all your basics for an album from this sort of band. The pointless intro followed by a breakdown, the slow clean vocal song that ends with a badly placed breakdown and so on. Also the single Rated R for Rambunctious gives a horrible interpretation of the album because none of the other tracks are as poppy. After giving this a few listens anyone with half a brain can realize they actually know how to play their instruments and can create some intense music. The problem here is sometimes they magically forget how to make some of that intense music and just add a breakdown to fill the void.
The first thing you may notice is the first half of the CD is heavier featuring endless amount of breakdowns and less clean vocals. I don't know if this was intentional or not but it doesn't hurt the CD in anyway. The first 5 tracks are what I call The Cry Wolf Broadcast Pt 1. all the tracks follow the same basic structure but everything is executed well enough to stay fresh most of the time. It was interesting to see that they had a few solos mixed in through out the album to show off their talent. They have three guitarist which most of the time in other bands is used for stage presence and what not but here they actually play a part. You can hear how the three guitarist effect the overall tone and feel of the songs. The vocalist Daryl G. has good command of his voice never sounding annoying and nasally. His growls are good enough to not bring down the album. From the first five tracks definitely give "Be Well John Spartan" a listen. They use a few samples from movies here but pull it off and create something interesting leading into the title track "Cry Wolf Broadcast" that is a solid track in its own merit.
Now on to The Cry Wolf Broadcast Pt 2. Things on this half of the CD get a little confusing and more creative then on the other half. The interlude "Grobe Lugner Sind Grobe Zauberer" serves as a sort of intro to the next part of the CD. The funny part is that its 100 times better then the albums actual intro. The following track "I Studied Metal At Julliard" is barn burner of a song or so it seems. At the 3:12 mark the song slows down and drops into a slow melody with Daryl G. singing very low as if he were whispering. Then slowly but surely the momentum that was killed starts up again and finishes the track on a high note. The next track that caught my attention was "Mississippi Blues Devil". It has the same sound My Hero Is Me has maintained through out the album but then out of no where around 2:15 the music stops and all that can be heard is Daryl G. snapping his finger singing the blues. Now you can take this in two ways. Either its pure genius or its just gimmicky you can be the judge of that either way its interesting. The next track is "A Beautiful Mind" and it was originally released on their EP not much has change besides a few tweaks and better sound. The track is definitely one of the best on the CD. Now to the CDs single Rate R for Rambunctious. All I can say is that if this was the first track off the album and you fell in love with it and heard the other tracks you'd want you money back. It has certain elements used through out the album but everything was done poppy to pretty much promote the album and get sales up but I guess thats what the majority of bands do these days.
So what do you get out of all of this? An album that is solid and recommendable. A huge problem is that if you shuffle up all these songs you can easily mistake some songs for another. Another problem is that there are just so many breakdowns. Every song has a breakdown and most songs have multiple. It's like ok we get it your "brutal" get over it. But if you enjoy breakdowns and can over look some minor flaws then you'll enjoy this album for what it is, not mediocre but not exactly 5 out of 5.
