Review Summary: "Open your eyes to see that, we can unite in turn."
A strong debut for a band new on the scene: expect to hear more from them.
The first question most will ask is "Is this better than Killswitch Engage (II)?" My answer is a resounding yes. While
Killswitch Engage's second eponymous album was not stellar, it was a solid album nontheless. But I can safely say Leach has well exceeded his former band's 5th album.
After leaving Killswitch, Leach took a small hiatus, then later created
Seemless, a rock/metal supergroup. However, he stopped using screamed vocals, until now.
The Empire Shall Fall is a five piece melodic metalcore/progressive metal band from Providence, RI.
Jesse Leach - Vocals
Jake Davenport - Guitars
Marcus de Lisle - Guitars
Nick Sollecito - Bass
Jeff Pitts - Drums
If you took
Meshuggah,
The Dillinger Escape Plan, and
Between the Buried and Me, and mixed them in a pot with early Killswitch, you would get
The Empire Shall Fall. A throwback to Killswitch's early days, with their original self-title and the ground breaking Alive or Just Breathing, Awaken is a huge step forward from the metalcore based sound of Killswitch. Laden with progressive guitar wizardry, crunching death metal growls, and jazz influenced polyrhythms backed by ferocious howls of angsty, politically charged lyrics from a newly-restored Jesse Leach, Awaken is mind-blowing at first listen.
The album begins excellently, but tapers off somewhat at the end.
1. Awaken
Awaken starts off with a bang, leading straight off with a tapped guitar intro. It plays off between a strong chorus and jazz-influenced riff verses. A interesting break comes in the middle, where guitars take background with a light harmonic single note playoff, which suddenly ends with some low headbangable stuff. The song phases out with a lengthy death metal breakdown, courtesy of Leach's howls and chunky dissonant chords from guitarists Jake Davenport and Marcus de Lisle.
2. Lords of War
Lords of War begins with a excellent guitar intro. It quickly gives way to Leach's screamed vocals. Drum work is frantic and well played here. Guitars mostly play riffs syncopated with drums behind Leach's voice, more angry than usual. A long jazz influenced guitar solo comes to play in the middle, phasing out to more guitar-drum syncopation, a tapped guitar part, and finally, a powerful hard rock styled outro. Guitars as a whole are excellent in this song. Traces of jazz comes to really play here, especially in the drum work.
3. Voices Becoming Weapons
Faded vocals introduce the song, turning into heavy bass drums, angry growls and low chords. The chorus has a start-stop chugg-chugg thing going on with the guitars. I would say this song (along with Choir of Angels) have the most progressive influences. As the song nears its end, the guitars chugg off a breakdown (you can definitely hear some Meshuggah here), and the outro mirrors the intro.
4. Choir of Angels
Choir of Angels starts off like a gunshot, rushed with drums, quick guitars, and a frantic sounding Leach, leading into standard metalcore single string strumming. Powerful guitars push the entire song. A tapping guitar solo gets featured during a break thing during the middle. Guitars are very chuggy here (with some squeals), and you can really hear the dissonance. Bass has better exposure throughout due to mastering. The outro is very long, fully of tappy guitars, then fading out to an odd instrumental. There's a nice headbanging part here.
5. We the People
We the People opens with a riff that is repeated a lot throughout the song. Harmonized guitars drive the riff through the entire song. A neat little progressive riff plays in the middle. An extremely jazz-like part follows. Dissonant chords and angry shouts follow, before outro-ing to the initial riff and the latter progressive riff.
6. These Colors Bleed
Bass gets a much needed feature here in the intro, before Leach takes off screaming again. This song in particular is very vocal and lyric driven. Guitars and drums are very rapid. An excellent breakdown comes in the middle, coupled with heavy dissonant guitar parts. A rock styled guitar driven outro ends the song.
7. Our Own
An extremely dissonant guitar riff starts out the song chugging away. It follows for parts of it, with some harmonic guitars riffs and a tapping break in the middle.
8. The Kingdom
A thick riff opens the song and powers through for a while. Progressive and death metal traits follow for most of the song. This one's a little hard to describe without hearing for yourself.
Good to see you back in action Jesse.
Recommended tracks
- Awaken
- Lords of War
- Voices Forming Weapons
- Choir of Angels
Pluses:
- Excellent debut, with plenty of space to grow
- A strong message with Leach's typically classical introspective lyrics; these lyrics seem to be more focused on the government, corruption, people, etc.
- Technicality is excellent; gets a little more experimental and jazzy than your typical metalcore
- Leach is back, and better than ever
Minuses:
- Current obscurity of band and indie promotion works against them
- The songs can get a little draggy with so much screaming and chuggy dissonance. Pacing isn't quite as nice as Killswitch's AOJB
- The extremely politically charged lyrics can be overbearing at times, especially if you're not into that sort of thing
Note: The Empire Shall Fall is an indie band, funded solely by themselves. Awaken is distributed solely through Angle Side Side Records, bassist Nick Sollecito's record, as well as iTunes.
