Review Summary: This album is king, this is the epitome of deathcore, and the genre has gone to crap because it's too elite to top.
Okay, deathcore sucks, gotcha dudes, I agree... but there's something about it being done right that just gets me hard. Stuff like The Red Chord, From A Second Story Window, (the) Plasmarifle, Despised Icon, etc., that mathcore-hardcore-death metal, just shores up the mast, and gets you ready to dip into the eye of the storm. Ley Lines is all of this done better than all of that. I'm serious bros, this album is dope as balls. It's too much to comprehend for the average listener, because their mental state is not dank enough. The perfection of diminished chords to twiddly-widdly riffs and off time "djenty" (rhytmically, not guitar tone, thank SKRAM GOD BIGMAN) breakdowns is just boners.
On top of all that, Counting Hallways To The Left was pretty krieg too, and like, despite losing GUITARL and Patty Picollo (lead brocals), ETE went on and got even more krieg. Like this is intense as dick, son, not much can top it. There's so much going on but it all runs together really smoothly. Did I mention Bart is a freaking machine? The drumming on here is so much better than 90% of metal, because the dude isn't trying to show off how fast he can play, he's actually trying to cater his drums to the songs.
Oh and did I mention Jesse Alford (lead metal vocals, former backing brocals) is pretty much the best vocalist in the genre? He's got classic tired old Mexican, Cali hardcore vocals down to the T, he's got those emo shouts down, he shrieks like a banshee, and though he doesn't do them much on this album, thanks to the quite competent replacement for GUITARL (who looks suspiciously like user ELIMINATOR), his gutturals are dank as hell. Plus, unlike most deathcore, this dude actually writes interesting lyrics. Here's an excerpt from the opening track "Cop In A Cage"
Our frames are riddled with holes
No big loss by friendly fire
Sew your seeds in the coffin
Breed us foreign cuddle time dancers
Bottoms up to cruel examples
Here's to the times
Here's to an epic failure
Tell me that doesn't sound sweet over a breakdown, in tired Mexican man hardcore vocals. I know you can't, because objectively, it sounds amazing. It works absolutely perfectly. In summary:
"Get weird, chug weed." -Jesse Alford
