Review Summary: Northlane 2.0
Prepared Like A Bride is a progressive metalcore/djent band from Australia and Overcomer is their first full length album released through Faction/Sony Music. PLAB plays a style very nearly interchangeable with fellow scene up and comers Northlane, who ironically enough also come from Australia. While that may sound extremely unpleasant to some, honestly the blatant worship turns relatively well. This could be attributed to the fact that Northlane only has two albums to their name so the sound hasn’t quite been battered to death yet, which allows for Overcomer to come out surprisingly well.
Instrumentally the band is quite proficient. The guitars are in drop something-extremely-low but manages to stray from monotony with some technical fills and atmospheric spacey interludes. The guitarists aren’t afraid to throw in some really nice melodic leads and plenty of off tempo and polyrhythmic bits abound. The drums are quite solid, not up to snuff with Northlane’s drummer, a highlight of their own influence’s sound, but still manage to throw in strong beats and varied fills. The bass gets lost in the low drawn out open notes but there are a number of instances where the guitars lean back into clean and ambient sections, which allows the bassist to throw in some nice grooves. Overall the base structure of the band is strong but what turns out to be the piece that holds them back is the vocalist. Vocalist Ryan Bowles has, to say the least, a unique scream. His range generally stays in the mid to low range, but his roar is often more of yell. It sounds like he can’t quite distort it enough to sound like a full on scream or growl and it comes out a sort of strained yell. He likely would fit in better with a straight hardcore band. Occasionally he tosses in a strained high yell that is slightly better. In truth I don’t find him to hurt the band but he will definitely be a turn off to a lot of people.
Overcomer runs at a short 36 minutes in length, which is a pretty solid length for PLAB in particular. A longer run time could potentially push the strange vocals into the listener’s face too much. Even someone that likes Ryan’s scream could get irritated over time. The first three tracks of the album pretty much show off the heavier aspect of the band with a lot of low grooves and rhythms, although “Breathe” in particular has some really good atmospheric pieces. Right after “Breathe” comes “9.11.12” which is a pretty useless interlude with nothing more than some samples and helicopter noises over nearly a minute. However it opens up the best track of this album and the band’s career. The title track is a melodic atmospheric beast that is equal parts catchy and heavy. If there is one song that can make you forget Ryan Bowles vocals, this would be it. His lyrics, which are nothing to write home about on the rest of the album, are phenomenal here in their passionate simplicity about a deceased loved one. Clean vocals, a rarity throughout the album, pop in to their best effect here. “Through Hell” is a standout due to a guest appearance by Landon Tewers (The Plot In You fame) that pushes it forward noticeably. The rest of the album changes between melodic and heavy and stays at a steady level of quality. Sadly it ends on a pretty sad note with bonus track “Liberty” which is just a minute of down tuned grooves. A poor end to a good album.
Overall Prepared Like A Bride put together a really good album of Northlane worship. If they try to branch out some and possibly drop the vocalist/get him to improve his technique, they could turn out to be a standout band in the future.
