Review Summary: What "Know Your Exits" should have been.
A follow-up to an album is what really shows who a band is. So to hear that The Last Ten Seconds of Life would be releasing an EP, I was kind of weirded out. Usually a band follows up with a full-length album. However, I guess you consider Warpath to be a taste of what their second LP will have in store. And if this is just a taste then I am ready for the whole thing.
The EP shows a step in the right direction for the band. While their debut album, Know Your Exits, showed a deathcore band that wanted to be as br00tal as their counterparts, the Warpath EP shows that the band wants to set themselves apart. Instead of focusing on being brutal and heavy like the LP, Warpath focuses on catchiness, melody, and groove. Something that only a few death metal/core bands do nowadays. Like most EP reviews I do, I will go track for track.
Intro: This is the only track that actually irritates me. There is no point to this track. It is less than 20 seconds of...I don't even know what it is. Sounds like a distorted siren or something like that. I deleted this track off my iPod.
Punishment: Ahhh. The true opener. And what a great opener it is. Immediatly, I notice how low the guitars are tuned now. Know Your Exits was in drop G. I thought that was low. But after looking into it, Warpath is performed in Drop F tuning. I immediatly welcomed this change as it helps the groove portion of the EP. Punishment is a 2 minute long track that shows what TLTSOL are now. A groovy, heavy, metal band. Not so much a death metal/core band anymore. The opening breakdown is probably one of the best breakdowns I've heard in a while. It closes with a ringing, open F string.
Warpath: The title song. It's pretty sick. 4 minutes long and it brings back some of the elements found in Know Your Exits but it doesn't overuse them and still keeps the overall style of Warpath intact. Warpath features the blast beats and chugged riffs found in Know Your Exits but also includes the bends, and groove found in this EP.
Break Stuff: I was pretty skeptical of this cover. A death metal band covering Limp Bizkit? To be honest, it sounds terrible as an idea. However, this cover was actually executed amazingly. It doesn't stray too far away from the original, which most "core" covers tend to do. Yet it still contains that TLTSOL sounds. Excellent cover.
In conclusion, this EP is the sound that Know Your Exits could have been and should have been. I highly recommned this EP for fans of metal that place emphesis on melody than being br00tal. And it tops their debut full-length by a long shot.
