Review Summary: A great comeback after 6 years since their last release.
Time to review an album from a band that I feel is pretty underrated. Many will disagree, but I think Cave In is easily one of the best metalcore bands out there, and they never really get the attention they deserve. This is my personal favorite album by them (even though Jupiter and Antenna were amazing too) because this album has the most variety compared to their previous ones, ranging from heavily distorted straight-up metal songs, to songs that sound like they could have been done by The Beatles. This is kind of a strange album, and a little inconsistent towards the end, but it's Â*a great listen overall. It's been six years since their last album, which was less than great, but this release shows that the band has still got it, releasing one of their heavier and more energetic albums in their career.
The album contains 9 songs and each song has something different to bring to the table. Tracks 1-6 mostly consists of metal songs each with heavily distorted riffs and screamed vocals. My favorite of the bunch would have to be "Centered." The song itself has kind of a Converge feel to it, and it's definitely one of the more chaotic songs on the album, its my personal favorite because the song is full of energy, and the distortion is used to great effect here. Another highlight is "Sing My Loves," at about 9 minutes, is by far the longest song on the album. This song has a great mix of singing and screaming. The first half of this song is mostly consists of heavy riffs with distorted vocals over it and then the second half has this great epic feel to it, and the vocals Â*soar over the music being played, making this yet another phenomenal track. Every song on this section of the album is good, each bursting with energy, and the heavy distortion makes it noisier and it feels more chaotic. These tracks are a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.
Next, comes the odd part of the album. On the next 3 tracks, the album completely flips itself over, and gives you a group of songs that have no correlation to the first 6 songs. It really surprised me when listening to this album the first time around. And while these last few tracks do give the album a lot more variety, the songs themselves seem really out of place and have nothing to do with the first 6 tracks. That being said, the song "Reanimation" is one of the better songs of the album. The song is very slow and has a spacey feel and a great ending, this song was a satisfying way to end the album. The other two tracks in my opinion, are slightly weak and don't really compare with the rest of the album. Nothing wrong with them, but they are a bit boring.
Overall I think this album is great and pretty underrated in Cave In's discography. If the band had made the last 3 tracks (excluding Reanimation) like they did the first 6, then this album would have been a perfect 5 from me. This album certainly is different (in a good way) and I would definately recommend it to anybody who is a fan of noisy, more chaotic metal.
