Ok. What you consider watered down, I consider more interesting.

I appreciate the comparison to a forgotten act. But what Undying did does not make 'Alive or Just Breathing' redundant. Their similarities are minimal.

Album Rating: 2.5

2002 alone saw tons of legitimately great Hardcore albums and this is far from being one of them.

This along with Waking the Fallen paved the way for a form of radio metalcore so nah.

Album Rating: 2.5

But what they were trying to achieve was pretty similar in the sense of melding Gothenburg into the Hardcore scene. Difference is Undying knew how to make themselves interesting whereas this relies way too heavily on bland mid-paced predictable riffage and utilizes influence from one of the At the Gates least interesting albums (Slaughter of the Soul).

Oh you said hardcore. I prefer hardcore so I agree about their being better hardcore albums in 2002.

Album Rating: 2.5

Also Vanity released in the same year as this and also was influential to Radio Metalcore while being musically better than this (Even if it wasnt as varied in its riffage as Until the Ink Runs Out was).

Album Rating: 2.5

Tear From the Red was also 2002 and even if it was also a step down from The Opposite of December it still influenced a lot of Radio Metalcore and still sounds leagues ahead of this.

I listened to a few Vanity songs and they sound way more conventional than this. Definitely one of the stepping stones to the metalcore pop sound though.

Iv'e listened to Poison the Well's debut before because they are often cited as an important band. I never understood the hype.

Album Rating: 2.5

Well if you think this is better than The Opposite of December then I guess youre lost for good



rip





Vanity is pretty conventional for sure but it doesnt rely on the 90s Metal cliches that this album does. A lot of sounds on Vanity were much more blatantly late 90s -core just put into a way that sounded slightly easier for wider audiences to get a handle on. I feel its more reasonable to paint this as more conventional since a good amount of the riffage in this one is stuff the mainstream was already incredibly familiar with. And to me Vanity has stronger songwritting and much more memorable catchiness.

"but it doesnt rely on the 90s Metal cliches"
And? Vanity rely on their own share of cliches. A cliche is a cliche. If you want to criticise music for that reason, be consistent.
I gave this album a 2.5 for a reason. I seem to recall there being an uplifting U2 melody somewhere on here lol
I don't care for what the mainstream is/was familiar with. I'm interested in what was conventional in hindsight.

Album Rating: 5.0

i don't know what ya'll are prattling on about but i will agree that Vanity has some limited degree of "convention" despite the fact they were largely more extreme and experimental than their peers at the time.

Album Rating: 2.5

Idk whats going on either, just want to say that you dont need to be consistent in hating on cliches, some are worse than others.

Album Rating: 4.5

"I feel sorry for anyone who thinks a band that slowed down a bunch of leftover riffs from The Whispered Lies of Angels to midpaced trash with some shitty 90s Groove riffs added in is actually good."



By that logic, we shouldn't be liking any form of hardcore or metalcore, or even heavy metal to be exact. Since every subgenre is built upon a blueprint made by another. No matter whether or not the similarities are that evident, it's still present one way or another.

Then we should take pity on those that like Black Sabbath, since they basically ripped off Cream and simply borrowed most of their riffs but played them with a more downtuned bass just because why not.



"Doesnt help that they got rid of their original singer and replacing him with an annoying operatic version of Efrem Schulz after this album, not that Jesse really was all that much of a vocalist."



You have three of AFI's albums rated as a 5. A band that's not only unoriginal and super-conventional musically within the genre it's part of, but it's also fronted by one of the whiniest, most obnoxious vocalists of all time. So, major lol to that.

Album Rating: 2.5

"And? Vanity rely on their own share of cliches. A cliche is a cliche. If you want to criticise music for that reason, be consistent."



I didnt say that Vanity didnt rely on cliches. Im not criticizing this album for using cliches in general im criticizing it for using cliche guitarwork that was already neutered as fuck and somehow managing to make it even more watered down. I even said that Vanity took the blueprint of a lot of late 90s Hardcore, difference is that album still contained a lot of the elements that I find to be a lot more interesting as opposed to Alive or Just Breathing considering how it took that same blueprint and added on tons of mid-paced 90s Groove and Gothenburg riffs that, for the most part, I find were already bland and watered down from the start. Vanity on the other hand kept a lot of the same sort of structures, heaviness, and general writting of their previous albums and similar ones to them while making the guitarwork a little more basic and having much more prominent clean vocals. Its the usage of the cliches as well as the different cliches chosen that I take issue with on this album.

Album Rating: 2.5

"By that logic, we shouldn't be liking any form of hardcore or metalcore, or even heavy metal to be exact. Since every subgenre is built upon a blueprint made by another. No matter whether or not the similarities are that evident, it's still present one way or another."



Even in that exaggeration I never made the point that taking influence is a bad thing. Just because I dislike the ways in which one album takes ideas doesnt mean that I dislike bands taking ideas in general. Its not about influence in general its about the ways in which theyre utilized and how they add to the sound and I dont think KSE used their influences in a way that adds to the sounds. I even brought up Tear From the Red and Vanity here both of which were more conventional Metalcore albums that came out the same year as this one but didnt have the add-ons of poor mid-paced Metallica grooves and bland Gothenburg worship that was already neutering down a lot of other more interesting bands and albums to me.



"Then we should take pity on those that like Black Sabbath, since they basically ripped off Cream and simply borrowed most of their riffs but played them with a more downtuned bass just because why not."



Which is hardly comparable to anything ive fucking said lol. As if "more downtuned bass" is equivalent to "slowing down their riffs", once again im not arguing that taking influence is a bad thing. If I need to really illustrate that further then Exile In Oblivion, The Illusion of Safety, and Supporting Caste are some of my favorite albums yet they very clearly took a lot of ideas off early Megadeth and made them much more catchy for a wide audience but the difference is they wrote their riffs in a way that kept the interesting bass heavy metallic shredding of Megadeths riffs still intact and played at a level that was nearly equivalent to theirs. In fact I actually get more entertainment value out of the three aforementioned albums than I do out of Killing Is My Business (which says a lot considering how much I love KIMB).

Album Rating: 2.5

"You have three of AFI's albums rated as a 5. A band that's not only unoriginal and super-conventional musically within the genre it's part of, but it's also fronted by one of the whiniest, most obnoxious vocalists of all time. So, major lol to that."



The Art of Drowning had some pretty odd melodic sections and is pretty varied, Sing the Sorrow showed them going for a dark mainstream sound without sacrificing a lot of the elements of their sound that made them cool, and Burials is one of the few Post-Punk inspired albums from the 2000s and onwards to keep some of the dark atmosphere that a lot of classic Goth Rock albums did. But the way in which I feel about AFI is pretty irrelevant considering how im not trying to make the argument that being conventional or having a whiny vocalist is bad in of itself. Congrats on being able to read someone elses 5s and not the actual conversation though.

Album Rating: 2.5

brutal

Album Rating: 5.0

User sounds Vain for Vanity.