Review Summary: On Frail Wings of Vanity And Wax? At least they got the vanity part right.
Certain bands irk me. Whether it’s awful vocals, poor instrumentation, bad production or just the stereotypes a band enforces. Alesana is a band that fulfils all of those criteria, their debut album “On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax” is a perfect example of music people should stay away from.
So let’s start off with vocals; the vocals on this album are shocking. I’m not sure what this fad with layered vocals is about, but I hope it ends soon. The vocals really are awful, whether it’s the high-pitched effeminate vocals, faux-death growls or uninteresting screaming, nothing stands out as being anything above mediocre. Throughout the album the vocal performance is weak, the total lack of emotion within the vocals is obvious from the get-go. Album opener “Icarus” subjects the listener to a combination of spoken word vocals and distant screaming so awful that it boggles the mind as to how this band has achieved their level of success.
But the fun doesn’t stop there, to accompany the poor vocals are equally poor lyrics. This band in a show of pure "ingenuity" makes use of ancient Greek mythology to provide their lyrics. I’m not sure if this was done to mask the band’s total lack of personality or if it was to appeal to the pseudo-goth crowd of angst-ridden teenagers that make up their fanbase, either way it just adds to the disappointment. But lyrics don’t really make a band and it's the instrumental work that makes band’s stand out.
Unfortunately Alesana’s instrumental work is nothing above average. Uninspired leads litter the album, in fact the guitar work is almost as much of a letdown as the vocals. I’m not sure what was going through the band member’s minds when they recorded this album but it can’t have been anything good. The guitarist’s make use of a metallic effect, similar to the slew of other pop-core bands that make up a huge portion of the music world today.
The bass work fails on all fronts. The bass is inaudible for most of the album and in terms of innovation, well, there isn’t any. The small amount of audible bass lines are both uninteresting and downright repetitive. The drumming on this album is unremarkable, in between the boring fills and uninspired beat-patterns the drumming adds nothing to the mix. There isn’t a single moment on the album where the drums standout or even provides a suitable backing beat.
Finally the album’s production is a total letdown. There are annoying piano sections throughout the album, again I’ll assume to add some false sense of artistic depth. Another common element is random vocal samples as demonstrated on the track “Alchemy Sounded Good at the Time”
“It is the oldest story in the book, he desires the one thing he cannot have”
This just adds to the feelings of pretentiousness that one has when listening to this album. However, there are a few positive moments on this album. In spite of themselves the band does produce a few moments that are above average, giving glimpses of hope for this band in the future. “Ambrosia” is one of the few times that the bad is bearable and even then the song is brought down by the lack of ingenuity the band shows. At times the band is able to provide slightly catchy moments, such as the chorus to “Pathetic, Ordinary” but again the poor instrumental work destroys the song.
Overall this album is awful. Between the mediocre guitar work, inaudible bass, repetitive drumming and poorly layered vocals there is little to no merit to be found. At times this band provides moments that show they have the skill to be something better. Whether they choose to act on this and progress will determine if they will ever be regarded as more than a generic band trying to sound epic and hardcore at the same time. But with an army of scenesters willing to follow them and their bad music to the end of the Earth it certainly seems unlikely.
Just as a final note; this band is not emo, they are not screamo and they most certainly are not post-hardcore. They are, quite simply, a pop-core band and a bad one at that.
