Review Summary: I guess it lives up to the title?
All That Remains are a "Metalcore" band formed at the back end of the 90's by one time Shadow's Fall vocalist Phil Labonte.
They started off with a more melodic death metal sound with their first 2 records "Behind Silence and Solitude" and "This Darkened Heart" before shifting to a more melodic Metalcore sound with what many consider to be their best work "The Fall of Ideals", and I share the same opinion, I would say it's certainly their best work.
However after that album, the group started to decline, with the next albums "Overcome", "For We Are Many" "A War You Cannot Win", "The Order of Things" and this new record, entitled "Madness" showing a more mainstream sound, which is fair enough, but I can only think of certain songs from those records that I personally am a fan of.
This new album, released yesterday on Razor and Tie, shows the group at their peak of mainstream.
The first 2 tracks, "Safe House" and the title track, were both decent.
"Safe House" starts off with a tremolo picked riff before turning into an outright chug-fest, but slows down near the end as the instruments fade one by one, leaving singer Phil Labonte screaming the words "You're welcome" which I thought was really cool, almost as if the song was sapping them of energy.
The title track should be familiar to FFDP fans, with a bouncing groove bursting in after an electronic intro, with a smooth piano sample lining the opening verse before exploding into the chorus. It is incredibly repetitive, and by the second chorus you'll wish it was over.
"Halo" whilst incredibly repetitive, is somewhat decent, as is "Louder" with an incredibly anthemic chorus, but nothing else that stands out.
The majority of the tracks take on a significantly softer sound, with the exception of "Trust and Believe", "Open Grave" and "Nothing I Can Do" , which fans of "The Fall of Ideals" will praise, as it harkens back to the melodic Metalcore sound that built the band up.
There is also a Garth Brooks cover on this album, the song being "The Thunder Rolls", and all I can say is "Why though?"
Production wise, it isn't the most solid by any means. There is a lot of programming elements on this album, which some people will like, but I personally got sick of it before side B.
The instrumentation, while well performed, sounds flat and uninteresting, The guitar solos are pretty decent though, but the flatness of the production lets them down. Bass is basically irrelevant, as it's barely noticeable under the drums, vocals, guitar and programming.
The drums sound not too bad, bar the bass drum sounding very clicky and given that this is supposedly a "metal" record, you'll be hearing it a lot.
The band are incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, I don't see why they wanted to bury their songs under programming and far too much processing. Phil is a great singer, both clean and unclean, but the vocals sound so processed it's almost like it's auto tuned.
TLDR; If you're going to listen to this album, listen to "Safe House", "Open Grave", "Trust and Believe" and "Nothing I Can Do", maybe the title track if you're a FFDP fan.
