Metal and Electronic are two very tonally different genres of music. The moods that the genres typically choose to express are often different from one another. So attempting to mix these genres without it feeling awkward would be a difficult experience. Now genre fusion is one of the cornerstones of musical evolution and on "Stand Up and Scream" Asking Alexandria try to fuse Metalcore with EDM, and this album doesn't do anything to expand upon, to flip, or evolve either of these genres. Whether or not it does anything for the evolution of the genres doesn't matter that much, rather their ability to properly mix these genres smoothly and with little awkwardness is what truly matters and "Stand Up and Scream" isn't able to fully deliver on that front.
Right out of the gate I noticed a very large problem that's consistent with many of the songs, the genre blending is often very abrupt and breaks the pace of the music. 'The Final Episode' starts the album off (after a lackluster intro track) and after three minutes of a pretty fun and average late 2000's metalcore song when you think the song's over it just gets suddenly overtaken by a dance beat and eventually turns into a clustered mess of chugging guitars, overdubbed screams and cleans, and the aforementioned dance beat. 'A Candlelit Dinner with Inamorta' does a similar thing but rather than having the dance beat placed right when you believe the song's gonna end, it's placed right after the first chorus. In some of the later songs like 'If You Can't Ride Two Horses at Once' and 'A Single Moment of Sincerity' the problem isn't that they unnecessarily place dance beats in fully constructed, well made songs but that the songs themselves are poorly strung together with a random cesspool of ideas. Some of these ideas are good but some of them are mediocre and when these inconsistent ideas are just mashed together in a 3-4 minute track with little cohesion the end result is messy, especially when a dance beat randomly takes over suddenly and confuses you.
Individually, separate elements on this album work well. Vocalist Danny Worsnop, while very overproduced, is strong with his delivery. His cleans are soaring and very pleasing with little harshness and whine. His growls are phenomenal, they're very impact-ful and carry power and his screams too are up to snuff. The hooks are often effective. The guitars are simplistic but enjoyable and catchy, the lead work incorporates enough melodies into the mix to keep your attention. But when Asking Alexandria puts these elements together they don't fit well. Its not terribly offensive but it is frustrating because if the majority of songs were at bit more structured then the album could've been great. In fact two songs on the album are perfect examples of what the album should've sounded like. Those songs being 'Nobody Don't Dance No More' And 'Hey There Mr.Brooks'
Both 'Nobody Don't Dance No More' and 'Hey There Mr.Brooks' are great songs that infuse electronic elements well. They use the electronic elements not to simply break monotony or stand out, but to enhance the presented soundscape. Its uses electronica to enhance your listening experience, to add to the song not subtract from it. At a fundamental level this is what the album should've tried to accomplish with all of it's tracks but instead the end product is an interesting, sloppy piece of music that its bogged down through poor execution.
