Review Summary: "Over and over I keep going over the world we knew"
“The World We Knew” is somewhat of a shocker song among Frank Sinatra songs (I’ve yet to listen to a lot of his work so cut me some slack), instead of his usual swinging style he sits back with moody lyrics about looking back on a past love. Strangely enough with a background like that in a metalcore group you’d expect a majority of songs to reflect on heartbreak (I.e. Killswitch Engage), but this band is a rarity among the metalcore community. I listened to the group after hearing much fuss about them being the “last worthy band on the Stillborn Records catalog” and I must say "surprised" seems to be the word of the day.
I once asked lead singer Frank “now you’ve been categorized as metalcore, hardcore, and even thrash metal. What do you see the band as?” and he just laughed and looked up and said “I see us as a metal band, we take influences from all the subgenres and kinda put them in there, but I just see us as metal band first and foremost”. With a response like that you’re probably wondering why I just called them metalcore earlier, while there are some obvious displays of hardcore (gang vocals and lyrics), and thrash (nice balance of riffs and solos), the band is overall easily metalcore. The guitars as aforementioned do solo it up from time to time in a very complimenting way, but as Max Cavalera once said “it’s fairly easy to write a solo, but it takes real creativity to write a good riff” and the band has taken note. You can tell during the recording process most of the band’s thoughts are put into riffs which turn out to be one of the biggest strengths on this album. Frank is also an extremely capable vocalist while his highs could use work, his hardcore brash screams are top notch and his cleans are so well honed it wouldn’t be hard for him to sing back up on a pop album, but he manages to keep it rough enough for it never to sound out of place.
The album opener and self-titled track “To the Wolves” you get hardcore laden riffs with a nice solo thrown right into the mix, in fact your so captivated by the instrumentals that you are even further blown away by the vocals. Another standout track is “Newsflash” while the catchy riff opens up and the vocals layer things down pretty nice it’s the catchy chorus makes the song a constant an easily replayable and addictive song. “King of the Ring” has been compared to by many fans as the albums “deathcore” song, it’s a stupid assumption if you ask me, as it seems to take more influence from death or thrash then anything. The album really seems to transition itself well from track to track, not a single song is bad in any form of the word, but if you truly want to enjoy this release just pick it up and play it from end to end.
The World We Knew was an underground, unheard of band that only received any form of attention for every member being “straight-edge”, but I think they’ve shed themselves of the "X’s" and branded themselves as an upcoming capable metalcore group. This album is a surprise in almost every sense of the word. Within a quickly dying genre these fine fellows seem to come out on top.
