Review Summary: Ironically, the only thing holding back We Came As Romans are their roots.
WCAR's debut album "To Plant a Seed" laid the foundation of their sound: Unclean vocals with uber high clean vocals, drumming, guitars, and the occasional synth. The big drawing factor of most of its fans was the abundance of positive lyrics and an energetic playstyle. This led to a very quick rise to popularity and they soon found themselves headlining tours with other -core bands.
With WCAR's sophomore release however, it appeared that they had dug themselves into a very deep rut. Understanding What We've Grown To Be was an extremely over-ambitious rehash of what To Plant a Seed was. There was absolutely zero advancement in sound or maturity whatsoever. The only thing that appeared to be added to the sounds was a use of orchestrated instruments which came off as pretentious and unneeded. Again the lyrics were positive, yet overly cheesy at the same time.
It's necessary to have a brief understanding of their past work to really appreciate how much of an improvement Tracing Back Roots is compared to their previous two albums.
For Tracing Back Roots, one of the biggest improvements to the overall sound is David Stephens. Normally the unclean vocalist, he adds his clean vocals to the mix this time around. His vocals are suprisingly refreshing when compared to the somewhat annoying high pitched vocals that the normal clean vocalist, Kyle Pavone, uses. David's clean vocals are in the middle register and have a rasp to them, sort as if he were mixing between a screamed note and a clean note. As for Kyle's vocals on this album, the heavy use of autotune is either gone completely or very lightly used. This is a HUGE improvement. The auto-tuning worked in some places on the first album, yet murdered the second album. They also ruined any expectations anyone could have for them at live concerts. There was no way Kyle could hit the high notes, which has labeled the band as a "studio magic" band for quite some time.
The vocals on this release are the best yet for WCAR. David's cleans are welcomed, and Kyle has lowered his range to a more doable and less annoying region. David is definitely the strongest of the two vocalists with great unclean vocals, and now showing the ability to comfortably do clean vocals. Lyrically, the album is yet another one of those "think positive, we'll make it through this", type of albums. This isn't necessarilly a bad thing, but if positive music isn't your thing, you won't appreciate the album too much.
The album falls back quite a bit when focusing on the instruments. They're there, but that's about it. It appears that they're merely used as a vehicle for the vocals to ride upon, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. They don't take away from the sound by including overly ambitious solos or wacky fills, but I still feel as if they could've added something more. There are some shining moments on songs where the instruments DO feel right, but those moments are few and far between.
As for the songs themselves, there are some great standout songs and a handful of forgettable songs. It feels as if WCAR are trying their absolute best to try and change the formula and advance their sound. This is extremely noticeable in the song, "I Survive" featuring Aaron Gillespie. The song doesn't even sound like it is a WCAR song, but it is a very great anthem song. Other songs, however, hark back to their synth-auto-tuned-pumped days of chug chug chug. It's these songs that are holding this album back from gaining any real traction.
Overall, the album is a tremendous step forth for the band, and possibly with the next album after Tracing Back Roots, they'll finally break free of their roots and finally find a sound that won't make every single one of their songs sound the same.
Recommended Songs:
I Survive (ft Aaron Gillespie)
Never Let Me Go
A Moment
Ghosts
Stay away from:
Fade Away
Pros:
Inclusion of unclean vocalists cleans are highly welcomed and refreshing
Song structure has been highly worked upon
Overall sound has matured
Great guest vocalist track
Cons:
Filler songs
Songs that bring back the bad taste of previous album mistakes
