Review Summary: A typical sophomore release. Improvement in some areas, regression in others. Still, the band remains consistent.
Feed Her To The Sharks' 2010 release "The Beauty Of Falling" was a very solid record. A bit generic at times? Sure, but the band showed a lot of potential. I heard about these guys when my best friend told me he found a few songs from their debut. He liked it , so he downloaded the entire album. I did the same a few days later. I thoroughly enjoyed it so needless to say, I was greatly anticipating the band's next release. This event occuring in late 2012, I didn't have very long to wait. They showed a lot of promise on their debut, so it was definitely worth the hype, right? Ehh, more or less.
The album opens with what I consider the extended intro title track. It has some kind sonar sound for the first ten seconds or so, then it goes into a synth effect. After another ten seconds of this, the guitars kick in. The first thing I noticed is the guitars are mixed differently, and don't sound as generic. A very nice improvement. Finally, Andy bellows "We are Feed Her To The Sharks!", and the songs kicks into a crushing breakdown. Right off the bat, I noticed Andy's growls are as deep and powerful as ever. His high screams on the other hand seemed to have degraded, sounding much more airy and not as full as they did on "The Beauty Of Falling".
Something that I find desirable about this song is that it features no clean vocals, and along with "*** Melbourne" and "Buried Alive" are the only songs to do so. The next song "Memory Of You" is the real beginner of the record. It features clean vocals that, while are more powerful than the ones on their debut, are ten times more whiny. At first, I had no problem with this. After the repeated listens necessary to write this review however, the clean vocals got more and more on my nerves. If I had to compare them to someone, I'd say they're a whinier verson of Adestria's Matt Anderson's clean vocals. So once again, the more enjoyable of the two vocalists is Andy, whose screams are damn enjoyable, albeit slightly less powerful.
After these first two songs, the album takes a slight dive. "Sink Or Swim" sounds like a musically re-hashed version of "Memory Of You" but with different lyrics. This song is actually where the clean vocals shine. They display their power well, and aren't as whiny.
The album is chock-full of breakdowns. Being a breakdown lover myself, I enjoy getting my skull crushed every track. That's just me though. If you only enjoy the occasional breakdown, there's still room for you. They only have one, sometimes two major breakdowns in a song. Nothing that would get on your nerves, I hope. If you hate breakdowns altogether, this, along with most metalcore albums, probably isnt for you.
Another thing I noticed with this album is that most of the song structures have become very formulaic. Aside from the aforementioned title track, "Buried Alive" and "*** Melbourne", every song on the record feels like the typical screamed verse, sung chorus strutcture that metalcore has become praised or infamous for, depending on your preference. On their debut, the clean vocals were used much more sparingly, usually towards the end of songs. The same situation was seen with Miss May I's "Apologies Are For The Weak", a release that I found enjoyable, though bland at times. They began to use the screamed verse, sung chrorus structure on their sophomore release "Monument".
Getting back to the album at hand though, a song that stands out to me at this point is "Shore Of Loneliness". It begins more melodic than any of the other songs. Not one of my favorites, but definitely a nice track. The last track on the album to not feature clean vocals is "Buried Alive". It's much faster paced than the title track or "*** Melbourne", the latter being the slowest, and also heaviest. The album closer "Death's Design" has an interesting start, beginning with Andy screaming over a piano playing. It ends up being one of the best songs on the album, but slightly unsatisfying as the album ender.
All in all, Feed Her To The Sharks has put out another solid record, although it is held back by a few of the flaws that plagued their debut. Enjoyable, yes...but defintely has more room for improvement. Until next time, get those clean vocals figured out, huh guys?
