Review Summary: A great CD with great potential that falls short to some minor flaws.
I'll start off by saying that when I hear Before Their Eyes first album I absolutely fell in love with it. It's not that great of a CD, but there was just something about it that was so catchy and heavy. I loved the singer’s voice and how he would go from high pitched singing to very low and heavy growls. Now with this album, his singing and screamed vocals sound to processed as if he tried too hard which makes me disappointed. The drums went down a notch from the last album and aren't as creative as I thought they were. But the guitars are consistently good keeping their style. Now this CD has real potential so I'll start off by saying the good things.
Life Was All a Dream is a good choice for an opener, because it has the fast drums, jamming guitars, and heavy and clean vocals. Everything you love in a good BTE song. And the breakdown in the end where he’s screaming “Life, life, life, bring me to life” is pretty intense. Next is Because 7 Ate 9, which I guess is a continuation from Why Did 6 Eat 7, but they sound nothing alike. This song is probably one of the heaviest with a really heavy riff and intense screaming in the intro. The chorus is good, but after the second chorus the song just stops. No breakdown, bridge, interlude. It just ends which really annoys me. It’s a good song with even better potential that it could be better. Now for one of the best songs on the album, The Beast Within. It has one of the catchiest choruses in any BTE song. Some really heavy screaming is shown on the breakdown where he repeats, “I’m addicted.” Now I’ll skip to track 5 The Things We Stood Against. Really a jam song, with really top notch drums. A lot like their first album, but it has the only guitar solo on the whole album. It’s decent, mostly pull off’s and triplets, so nothing hard, but it does sound pretty good, and leads to a cool breakdown. Next is another good jam song with more screaming than most of the other songs on the CD. It has a really good chorus with really good drums and is just a good song. The Way We Operate has absolutely no screaming and is a mediocre poppy rock song. Kind of disappointing but it is a decent song, nothing special at all. Now I’ll skip to track 10. This is an exceptionally good BTE song where the vocals stand out big time. It layers his vocals a lot but it sounds really good. And the screaming is constantly present in this song, especially at the breakdown, where has some creepy chick singing in the background. It has a really cool feel to it.
Now for the songs I skipped that totally destroy the album. First, So In Love. I’ll start off by saying it’s actually a decent song, but not on a BTE album. It has the most disastrous and generic lyrics I’ve ever heard. Here’s just a taste…
"And when the lights start dimming
You'll be asking me to make this room to stop spinning for you
Now let me offer my apology
I'm only sorry that you can't stop calling me"
It’s absolutely disastrous. I won’t even bother to explain it other than say that it sounds like a song from Simple Plan. Next is almost just as bad, New Kids In Town. Another song with disastrous lyrics so here’s a preview...
"We're not just here to fake it
we're gonna rock you to make you shake it
I'm gonna tear it down
I'm gonna bring it around
We're the new kids in town
So turn it up now!"
It’s absolutely horrible. It’s a wannabe redo of their other southern influenced screamo song Journey Down South (It Starts With a Two Step) on their first CD but it’s just awful and falls horribly short. And I’m not saying that BTE’s lyrics were ever top notch, but they stooped down so low producing crap like this. The other song Their Throats Are Open Graves is just a filler track and takes up a minute and a half of weird noises.
So in the end it’s a good CD with a lot of potential but falls horribly short with songs like So In Love, and New Kids In Town. If you liked their first album, you will probably like this.
