Review Summary: Not up to par with their debut.
This band’s debut album, A Clear Perception, added new levels of depth, ingenuity, melodicism, and unpredictability to a genre flooded with monotony. The variety contained in that album was astonishing, with tracks such as Misconceptions, The Impact of Two Hearts, and Decorus displaying a wide range of diversity in tone and musical style. Yet, TEoAT never lost sight of their main goal of providing pummeling, high intensity progressive death metal filled with catchy, albeit unpredictable riffs and breakdowns. It goes without saying that my anticipation for the July 2010 release of Breathless was quite high. Though tracks such as Nothing to Offer and Come to my Senses have been offered on their MySpace page for awhile now, I have been looking forward to hearing this new album as a whole.
And…TEoAT do NOT disappoint. From the opening guitar riffage and drum work of the minute long prologue that slides right into the opening track, The Birth, it is clear that the band has re solidified itself as a metal powerhouse to be reckoned with. This album, though, shows a slight move in the hardcore direction rather than the death metal/progressive direction which is what made them stand out. One of the things this band really had going for it was the voice of lead singer Jack Delany and his ability to do great screams but also low death growls and yells. In this album, though still maintaining most of the vocal diversity from the first, his voice spends more in a middle range which I associate with hardcore music and also found more grating to the ears. On the other hand, the track Your Old Ways features the highest pitch that has come out of Delany’s voice between the band’s first and second album-but don’t expect to hear this at a live concert. It doesn’t sound very natural. Yet this particular track probably contains the most vocally driven diversity, as immediately after the high-pitched wail Delany goes into the death growl mode (which I wish he spent more time in throughout this album).
Crowd favorites will probably include Come to my Senses and Nothing to Offer which are ripe with sing along breakdowns, yet contain lots of that grating vocal style that I associate with more with hardcore music than heavy/death metal. The title track Breathless is where you’ll find the heaviest vocal style that is offered on this album.
I hold true to my statement that TEoAT do not “disappoint” in their sophomore album, but I certainly wouldn’t contest that they have improved upon or evolved in terms of their first. Not a single track on Breathless comes close to matching the rhythmic ingenuity or the great melodicism in tracks like Misconceptions and Like Clockwork. My hope for future releases is that TEoAT spends more time writing music in the vein of their first album: carefully structured, but with the raw power and melodic fire that makes their music so compelling. Any further straying from the heavy side of metal might put this band in a bad place. They should stick with what they have proven they do best on their first album, because they truly do it better than almost anyone.
-thespoonfeed.com
