Review Summary: All That Remains show us that change is a good thing, and i'm pretty damn happy about it.
All That Remains; A name that has basically become synonymous with Metalcore. They’ve created The Fall of Ideals, one of the most acclaimed albums in the genre. I guess what goes up, must come down. After The Fall of Ideals, they released Overcome, which in my opinion was a huge disappointment. It had its high spots, but the bad outweighed the good. Their most recent effort, For We Are Many, is a combination of both of these albums. It mixes the intensity and power of The Fall of Ideals, with the melody and superior lyrical work (this is all opinion, mind you) of Overcome. Is it as good as The Fall of Ideals or, what I consider to be their best work, This Darkened Heart? Not quite. Is it better than Overcome? You bet your ass it is.
I’m not trying to say that this is just a mesh of the work they’ve done in the past, this is definitely its own album. It shows the evolution of the band, which is something I’ve always been quite partial to. They really aren’t introducing anything new to the genre, but it’s definitely a sign of change for the band itself, which is definitely a good thing. As good as some of their past work was, I’m glad that this isn’t just another Fall of Ideals, I imagine that would get boring after a while. Some change worth noting is the increased frequency of clean vocals. There isn’t a song on the album that is completely devoid of clean vocals (except the intro) and honestly I think that’s a good thing. It’s what makes For We Are Many their catchiest album yet. Personally, I love a song that I can sing along to, and this album is full of catchy vocal melodies. There are also much more prominent Melodic Death Metal influences that their last two releases. That means catchy vocals AND riffs! Sign me the f*ck up!
Alongside all the evolution the band has undergone, at their core, they’re still All That Remains. This album still has that guitar tone that we all know and love, especially in the solos (which are fantastic on this album, by the way) and not to mention the distinct vocal work of Phil Labonte. One thing that kind of got on my nerves about the vocals, though; this guy REALLY likes his layered vocals. A song like “The Waiting One” does not need growls or screams in it, even if they are hidden behind the cleans. If it’s not low growls and high screams being put together, I think we can leave out layered vocals. Other than that, though, Phil is still a kick ass vocalist, no matter how they decide to mix them. Speaking of the mixing on this album, you can actually hear the bass! Jeanne Sagan finally get to show what she’s got on this record and from what I can hear, she’s got a lot to offer to the band. Why they decided to mix her in NOW, I don’t know. Better late than never, I guess.
So my final verdict on For We Are Many is a solid 3.5. It’s got great instrumentation, vocals, songwriting, and like I said, it’s catchy as a motherf*cker. There are some points where it just lacks the intensity that it feels like it could have had. Some parts just make you think that they could’ve gone somewhere better with the direction the song was going. I think what I’m trying to say is that it just could have flowed together better. It had a lot of potential, and what the album has is great. I just think that there was more there than what is on this album. However, I asked for something better than Overcome and I’ll be damned if that’s not what I got. I’m very happy with the album and hopefully All That Remains lives up to the potential that this album had sometime in the future.
Recommended tracks:
The Last Time
Some of the People, All of the Time
Dead Wrong
The Waiting One
