Review Summary: With Violent Allies 10 Years are simply appealing to a more commercial audience once again
10 Years positioned themselves as one of the best alternative metal acts with their major label debut The Autumn Effect in 2005. It proved, alongside other acts such as A Perfect Circle's Thirteenth Step, Chevelle's Vena Sera and the eclectic Saturday Night Wrist from Deftones, that the genre still had something unique to offer and that it could be dissociated from the other many post-grunge and nu metal acts that saturated the scene in the early 2000's.
One thing that characterized the band was the more serene and atmospheric approach to their metal influences and the progressive tendencies that permeated their early material. The follow up album, Division, saw the band heading towards a more alternative rock style while keeping the production slightly more “organic” and acoustic. While this album was less commercially successful it still maintained their trademark mood and subdued heaviness that set them apart from the rest. It was clear, until that point, that the band was more focused on crafting consistent albums instead of just popping out radio singles to fill up arenas. Songs like “Proud of You”, “11:00 AM (Daydreamer)” and “Picture Perfect (In Your Eyes)” (along with their respective instrumentals at the end of each song) were enough proof that the band still wanted to retain some of the atmospheric elements that made them unique.
Enter Howard Benson; a man known for producing some of the most generic (though commercially successful) rock albums since the early 2000's. Some of his work include Seether's Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces (failing to satisfy fans after their most acclaimed album Karma & Effect), Release the Panic from the alternative metal band Red (in which the band themselves view with much disdain nowadays), to working with Daughtry, Hoobastank, Skillet, Three Days Grace, Theory Of A Deadman and Flyleaf, to name a few. Feeding the Wolves, released in 2010, felt victim to Benson's production style and sucked any sort of subtlety and atmosphere in turn for a more direct and poppy approach. While the album contained screamed vocals and had the appearance of being heavier and energetic, it felt flat in terms of leaving any sort of impression on the listener. Violent Allies (also produced by Howard Benson) doesn't do anything to set itself apart from their 2010’s release. Actually, you could exchange songs from either album and come up with a very similar product; songs like “Sleep in the Fire” or “Cut the Chord” don’t do anything to distinguish themselves from average alt metal songs like “Waking Up the Ghost” or “Chasing the Rapture”, and then “Déj* Vu” (as its name fittingly implies) is essentially the same exact song as “Shoot It Out” which was the lead single from Feeding the Wolves.
Violent Allies biggest crime, perhaps, is having an awful ballad like “The Unknown” released as a single and terribly placed as track #2. In the past, 10 Years have seamlessly included great ballads such as “So Long, Goodbye” on Division and “Seasons to Cycles” on The Autumn Effect, but it seems they aren’t able to craft this type of songs for commercial appeal anymore. Even the ballads from Feeding the Wolves, “One More Day” and “Fix Me”, were a saving grace to what otherwise is (mostly) a monotonous album. Taking their closers also in consideration (in which they always excelled at) it seems they also ran out of ideas. While “Say Goodbye” is a decent song on its own it lacks the usual progressive nature in which they traditionally end their albums; some examples are the powerful combo of “Miscellanea” / “Moisture Residue” of From Birth to Burial, progressive rock influenced “…And All the Other Colors” from Minus the Machine and “Fade (Into the Ocean)” from Feeding the Wolves, and The Autumn Effect’s title track which still stands out, arguably, as their best closer.
With all this said, it would be unfair to put the blame on Howard Benson alone. When Minus the Machine was released it was considered by some fans as a very much needed return to form for the band, but it also is the only post-Division album that managed to bring back their trademark atmosphere with varying degrees of success. The constant line up changes, specially since the release of (How to Live) As Ghosts in which they became a trio, has clearly limited their level of consistency and creative input and, thus, they have failed to regain the success they had very early in their career. It seems with Violent Allies they are simply appealing to a more commercial audience once again, but this time closing the door to any hope of coming back with something that would make them interesting one more time.
