Review Summary: This is a plea to all musicians: For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, do not leave us with a legacy of terrible music.
Imagine if you will, a monstrous, hideous entity of pure evil: A hydra erected from some of your worst nightmares, as well as the most demonic beings from some of popular culture’s mythos such as the terminator, the acid spewing aliens from the “Alien” series, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, the murder robot ED-209 from “Robocop”, and the chainsaw wielding psychopath from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
That behemoth doesn’t hold a candle to the abomination nightmare that is Attack Attack!
One of my friends told me to listen to a song from these guys. I forget which one it was, because I was too busy breaking his trachea with a tire iron for telling me to listen to that song, but during this pummeling my friend described this band as crabcore. Now, I had no idea what ‘crabcore’ was, and upon further research, I discovered it’s just some stupid genre someone created after watching a video of the band’s song “Stick Stickly.” This only proves that you can put any word in front of “core” to describe a metalcore band.
Metalcore / Electronica / Pop Rock band Attack Attack! (not to be confused with the Welsh rock band Attack! Attack! Even though it’s damn confusing) have done more to damage our generation of youth than drugs, television, movies, and Stephenie Meyer combined. I find it depressing that after all these years—all these generations—of music, we’re giving our children the audio version of vomited *** in a blender. But, that’s too harsh. Here I am bashing this album and the band when I haven’t even discussed the music yet. Well, they never said this would be easy.
Looking at the tracklist to “Someday Came Suddenly” doesn’t give us much hope. Much like The Devil Wears Prada, the band gave their songs stupid titles with lyrics that have nothing to do with the songs themselves, alienating anyone who wants to study their lyrics. Though I imagine that demographic of persons (people who spend their time reading Attack Attack! lyrics) is about a the same size as people who enjoy cleaning gas station bathrooms with their tongues, I find stupid joke song titles an immature gag to gain fans with IQs lower than used condoms.
The first track, “Hot Grills and High Tops” sounds like Brokencyde, and I nearly shut off my music player because of it. Fortunately, the hip hop / electronic interlude is brief, and then segues into “Stick Stickly.” I have to admit, the transition was rather smooth and well done. Unfortunately, “Stick Stickly” starts with a breakdown, but the song gets better. Despite the bland guitar riffs, boring drums, and inaudible bass, the song is listenable, and somewhat catchy. The clean vocals are all right, but are assisted with autotune, which makes them lame. For the most part, the song is ok, but it becomes a train wreck around the 3:00 mark, turning into a song you’d probably hear at your high school prom. The clean vocals have so many effects and autotune that I don’t want to listen to them.
“Bro, Ashley’s Here” is misleading, because Ashley isn’t mentioned in this song, so I guess she’s not here after all. Instead, we have some breakdowns, some more ear-splitting screaming, autotuned clean vocals, and bland lyrics. It’s at this moment, I come to a realization. I remember watching an episode of Gilmore Girls where some girl was dating some guy who could only talk in clichés such as “Don’t throw stones in a glass house” and “It takes one to know one.” That’s what this band is: one giant cliché. The band members are all clones of each other, the songs follow the basic formula of screamed vocals, breakdown, clean vocal interlude, breakdown, some electronic beat, breakdown, breakdown, and more screaming. Okay, so it isn’t so basic, but this formula continues for nine more songs.
The rest of the songs are basically the same, except for “Interlude”, which sounds like it should be at a fifteen year old girl’s party. Some have the clean vocals sections, while others don’t. Besides that, and the lyrics to the songs, there isn’t much innovation in the musical sense. Barf.
As for the instruments, they’re what you’d expect from a metalcore / electronica band. The guitars play basic, bland riffs, though you will hear a quick pinch harmonic at times, which is cool. The bass doesn’t exist, and the drums are played competently, and can be interesting at times. The keyboards and electronic effects overshadow most of the instruments, however, and they are used all the time. For the most part, they’re okay, but can get annoying at times, like in that stupid dance segment of “Stick Stickly” and “Interlude.”
I do realize that this band’s music appeals (and is marketed to) adolescents and dance clubs, but this is no excuse. With the terrible screamed vocals, autotuned clean vocals, boring, mindless guitar riffs, equally boring drums, and myspace lyrics, listening to this music probably causes brain damage. It’s like they took everything bad about today’s music and mashed it together. Think about it, we’ve got autotune, breakdowns, moronic song titles, breakdowns, and breakdowns. Well, there’s no rapping in this album, so I guess I can’t say they took everything. Yes, I’m sure there are people out there who dig this music, and I’m sure they like drinking bleach milkshakes, too. My point is, they shouldn’t like this music, but I get its appeal.
This isn’t my cup of tea, as you probably have realized, but I couldn’t find many positives about this album. The songs are pretty short. None of them are over four minutes. In case terrorists abduct you and force you to listen to this, you’ll be able to get through it without chewing your own tongue off, though you’ll be close to doing so. If you’re a fan of good music, please stay far away. If you like this band, and you haven’t had a lobotomy, get one before that part of your brain tells you it’s okay to drink that canister of turpentine in your garage.
Oh, and I shouldn’t have labeled these guys “metalcore.” I think “***core” is more appropriate.
