Review Summary: Pleasant Nature
I Prevail’s new album Violent Nature arrives at a pivotal moment for the band. Following the departure of longtime clean vocalist Brian Burkheiser earlier this year, will the band maintain the momentum generated by their recent output? With Eric Vanlerberghe now taking on both clean and harsh vocal duties, the group faces the challenge of either redefining their sound or attempt to stay the course.
They conclusively lean towards the former. While this is definitely not a complete rebuild of what you can expect from I Prevail, it's definitely a much more streamlined version of what the band was doing on TRUE POWER. Varied to almost a fault, TRUE POWER showed a band willing to blend things in their own way, with ex-vocalist Brian Burkheiser being a distinctive enough voice to bring forward the poppier aspects of their sound. One could even reasonably assume that there was already a sense of inner tension that came through the directionless aspect of the music. Taking into consideration that Eric Vanlerberghe was previously almost exclusively relegated to screams and spoken word sections, one could also expect this new album to strongly lean into the band's harsher side. This was echoed by the album's title track and first single, Violent Nature, which is a short relentless blast of intensity showcasing the band's seldom used aptitude for pure adrenaline rush. Surprisingly enough however, that was a bit of a bait-and-switch.
For the most part, Violent Nature is shockingly...not violent. It's mostly the same OctaneCore you've heard hundreds of times before, executed in unexciting, if decent, fashion. Pray, for example, just sounds like BMTH's Strangers while Crimson & Clover is every emo ballad ever made blended together. Vanlerberghe's cleaner vocals dominate the vast majority of this record, and not always for the better. The results end up being quite standard, with singing that is neither unpleasant nor impressive. Pitch correction (among many other production techniques) is used without abandon, leading to a general sense of ''Am I really listening to this guy singing? How will this translate live?''. It leaves very little impact overall and leaves me missing Burkheiser's more confident vocals and writing which we've associated with I Prevail up to this point. Vanlerberghe also struggles in the lyrics department, using very blunt imagery and lacking a style of his own. Here's the chorus for Rain:
''So let it rain down, wash over me
Come set me free from this misery
Need a way out of this apathy
Just set me free from this misery
Let it rain''
Not exactly anything new. I would even go as far as to say this kind of writing would be perfectly at home in a parody of this genre of music. It's a shame because it slightly ruins an otherwise solidly executed chorus.
Musically, the band does show a few new tricks up their sleeve from time to time. Select moments scattered throughout the record feel pretty inspired in the limited box the band has created for themselves, such as the subtly polyrhythmic spice of the main synth line in Pray or the swept arpeggios that close out Annihilate Me. The main shoutout however goes to drummer Gabe Helguera, who feels like he's been unleashed for the first time. He's a master at bringing all this mostly standard fare to a slightly more interesting level, such as his syncopated accents in the opening riff of Rain or the double time break in the bridge of the same track. For the most part though, the musicianship is kept relatively tame. Some songs do stand out in their limitation, the opener Synthetic Soul in particular feeling just as appropriately grand as any opening track of its kind should be. The heavier tracks (NWO, Violent Nature, God) feel a bit more free of the formula, yet at the same time they manage to feel just as forced (and the tapping lead in Violent Nature somehow manages to rip off Secularity from my old band Eternal Closure which I just think is funny enough to mention).
This isn't exactly the I Prevail we've come to know, but it is disappointing that this opportunity didn't push them towards something even slightly more ambitious. I will say, I'm kind of a sucker for some good OctaneCore, and for the most part this delivers on that. Nothing that really enriches my musical library in a meaningful way, but confidently pleasant in nature...
