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Review Summary: A horrible followup to an even worse debut. Born of Osiris has proven to be one of those "love them" or "hate them" bands. It seems for every person praising them, there's another tossing their copy of The New Reign in the dumpster. Which one am I, you ask? Well, I'm the one tossing my copy in the dumpster, of course. I'll say it out right, I do not like Born of Osiris, but I have always tried to. I've always been fair with my judging of this band. My opinions are strictly based off of their music, rather than a mixture of their appearance, and overall hate for core bands. That being said, The New Reign was utter garbage. On a scale of 1 to 5, it's a 1.5. It was a horrible uninspired The Faceless rip off, which couldn't even succeed at that. So, what has changed in Born of Osiris land? Not much.
Some will argue this is a perfect blend of technical death metal meets metalcore, but the fact of the matter is, this couldn't be any further from the truth. A Higher Place is about as generic as they come. While it is better than The New Reign, it still suffers from pretty much every previous flaw this band had. The main flaw this band still suffers from, is lack of originality. While there is several flaws, lack of originality is the first one that comes to mind. It becomes painfully clear after your first listen of A Higher Place, Born of Osiris does not possess a single original, or creative thought in any of their minds. Virtually every song with the exception of the intro track, follows the same formula. You have your weedle deedles, your chugs, your breakdowns, your generic solos, and your slower sections usually with some form of keyboard solo, or added ambient effect from the keyboards. The only varying difference between the songs, is the order in which this formula is produced. Lack of variety is another flaw, which obviously coincides with lack of originality. What makes me cringe is just how alike all the instrumentals sound. Every single low chug sounds identical.
Ronnie Canizaro has virtually no range in his vocals. It's the same mid-range suckfest throughout the entire album. He occasionally tries a high, or a low, which comes out sounding like a ever so slightly higher or lower pitch sounding mid range, all of which are horrible, and rasp.
It's as if the band sat down, and asked themselves "How can we make our generic piece of *** deathcore band stand out from the other million generic piece of *** deathcore bands? I know!, we'll throw in keyboards. That totally is an original idea, and hasn't already been done a million times before!". Which is exactly how the keyboards feel in A Higher Place. A tacked on gimmick to mask the fact that this band is no different than the thousands of other XxxCorexxX bands out there. What's disheartening in all of this, is Born of Osiris ever so subtlety throughout A Higher Place demonstrates that they do in fact know how to play their instruments. While I don't think their playing abilities are incredible, they can certainly do better than this.
What's also disheartening is this album is going to be potentially viewed as a good, possibly even great album. Which it very might well be to Born of Osiris' targeted teen with limited metal knowledge audience. However when it comes right down to it, A Higher Place while still being a better album than The New Reign, is a horrible album that should be avoided if at all possible.
Pros:
-It's, um... better than The New Reign!
Cons:
-Generic in every sense of the word.
-Extremely repetitive.
-It's boring when compared to any other half decent group in the same genre.
-It's flat out horrible.
| other reviews of this album |
Bitstream (3)
Falling short of what could have been, Born of Osiris take a different approach, some of it good, so...
AfterTheBreakdown (3.5)
If you were not completely satifisfied with The New Reign, this may be worth a quick look...
Pillars2 (4)
this album really takes you to a higher place. the best name of a metal cd like this should be calle...
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Album Rating: 2.0
It's July 7th somewhere in the world.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Well written review but...
Ouch.
The lack of originality part is a little unfair considering that 90% of deathcore bands suffer from a lack of originality, it isnt a very expansive genre. However I do like this band, I think the out of place keyboard parts break the chugging monotony and some of the guitar leads are really simple catchy and clever. They dont try too hard to be "technical" or "brutal" like most of their colleagues. The only part where I think this band is seriously lacking is the songwriting, sometimes making you wait 2 minutes to get to the awesome riff then playing it for like 15 seconds and ending the song. Atleast there was noticeable improvement between this and the last so hopefully the trend continues.
The last paragraph's was a little too subjective and "limited metal knowledge audience" was a uncalled for.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
The Faceless 2
(not a good thing)
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
I still stand by my comment. From what I've seen, that IS there targeted audience. Born of Osiris isn't trying to reel in the metal head. They're attracting 15-somethings. Does that mean that if you enjoy Born of Osiris you're instantly grouped in this category? No, nor did I imply that.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Actually, you did imply that.
If you played a musical instrument, you'd probably appreciate this album alot more.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
The fact that you said its disheartening that people will view this as good kind of implies that people who say its good are ignorant.
I agree with the sellkies(though i dont know if you actually play anything), from a song writer's perspective(excuse me if that sounds arrogant) the melody construction is freaking great even though the song construction is balls.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
"Which it very might well be to Born of Osiris' targeted teen with limited metal knowledge audience". No that does not in anyway imply that if you enjoy Born of Osiris, that you are apart of this group. It's very simply worded, this album might seem like a "good, possibly even great album" to their targeted audience, which in my opinion are teens with limited metal knowledge. How does that anyway imply that if you like Born of Osiris than you are instantly included? It doesn't even imply that all teens are part of this "targeted audience". Also, I don't remember saying that I DIDN'T play a musical instrument.
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Hmm review seems a bit biased. I'm still gonna have to give this a chance
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
Would appreciate it if people would actually explain why they're negative rating. Though I doubt people even read what the bottom line actually says. "Oh god, I disagree with the rating. negnegnegnengegn". I'm glad I don't take it too seriously.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I find it humorous that you rate BOO a 2.0 for unoriginality, yet you found no problem with the two string chugging of Suicide Silence in your review of "No Time To Bleed." This is one hell of a sophomore album from a very promising up-and-coming group. I actually completely disagree with you about this album in comparison to "The New Reign." Tracks "Bow Down," "Empires Erased," and "Open Arms To Damnation" off that release are three of my favorites of the entire genre. The musicianship is not the best that I've ever heard, but it is quite impressive in places; simply saying that they "know how to play their instruments" is a bit of an understatement. They have many intricate harmonies and I can think of no better word to describe the drumming than "tasty." He may not blow you away with his speed like every other death metal/deathcore/whatever drummer but he's got some pretty sweet beats going on.
All-in-all definitely thought you were way too harsh. However, one point I will agree with you on are the vocals, which are pretty weak. Surprisingly, he's actually stronger live, which one wouldn't expect when they're weak on record.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
If I given SS anything higher than a 4, you may have had a point. Giving an album a 3 isn't exactly rating it high. And while I would agree that Suicide Silence is also unoriginal and generic (did you even read the review, seriously?), there's at least standout tracks on that album, there is none here. I can at the very least think of 1 track off of that album where they changed it up (well, 2 actually if you count the god awful instrumental track). There's zero here, one if you count the intro track.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I did read the review, yes. Considering you rated that album as "Good" and this album as "Poor" I find it to be fair to comment on it. I happen to also like Suicide Silence, although I enjoyed "The Cleansing" more, but that's neither here nor there. And you made no reference to any of my other points. As far as stand-out tracks go, I'd have to say "Now Arise" and "Exist" for two, and definitely the three I mentioned above off of "The New Reign" which you also took upon yourself to dismantle.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
This band is better then suicide silence, but the vocals are so garbage and they overpower everything. I don't know if i'll ever get past it. I also disagree about there being no stand out tracks on a higher place. "Live Like I'm Real" is a pretty great song.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Also, their new lead guitar player is freak-nasty live. (I just saw them at Summer Slaughter the other day).
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
I said that seeing as in that review I dropped the words "generic" and "mediocre" several times. As for your other "points", there's really no point in discussing them. They're your opinion, which I obviously disagree with. The fact that you can point out songs is indeed impressive considering throughout the ENTIRE album (again, except for the intro) they follow the exact same formula, merely changing the order in which they occur. Which, is also what Suicide Silence did, which the exception being Your Creations, and the instrumental track. The fact that you pointed out 2 songs out of 13 tracks reinforces my silent opinion that you're merely a fanboy. A 4 for an album with 2 stand out tracks? Hmm... In all reality Suicide Silence and Born of Osiris are both horrible bands. The only difference is Suicide Silence put out a barely enjoyable album, where as A Higher Place feels like a chore trying to sit through it's entirety.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
The fact that you pointed out 2 songs out of 13 tracks reinforces my silent opinion that you're merely a fanboy.
Wait, wait... Turn your nose up, then say that again.
Yes, I'm clearly a fan of the band. I wouldn't be arguing in favor of this album if I wasn't. I gave the album a 4.0 because I thoroughly enjoyed it. I listed off a couple songs when you asked for some to be named as stand-outs. That doesn't mean I like the others any less, I just chose two to mention. The points I were referring to were more along the lines of my comments on their skills as musicians and composers. The songs may follow similar structures, but there are melodies and harmonies found here that few bands dream of making up, thus placing them a cut-above the generic offerings from other artists in the genre.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
It's just hard to listen to all of those melodies with the vocalist sucking up the room.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I feel ya, IndieOut. He is weak.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
I initially started arguing with you, as I thought I might be able to squeeze some actual feedback on the review out of you. Instead, you've done nothing but disagree with the rating, which is fine, but this argument is pointless. In fact the comments here merely prove the "love them" or "hate them" comment to be accurate. In all honesty, I don't care if people like this album, it's their opinion. Just like this review is my opinion, what is a little frustrating, however is when morons rate down on a review because they disagree with the actual rating. The question at the bottom doesn't ask if you agreed with the rating, it asks if you thought the review was well written. You can disagree with a rating and still find a review to be well written.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Well, for the record, I POS'd the review. I thought the review was fine. I just wanted my voice to be heard in terms of giving the album a fair fight.
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