Review Summary: This is overrated post hardcore at its worst. Are you sure there are two vocalists??
Emery has always sort of confused me. Their writing has always been pretty mediocre and they never really cross over into that point of being catchy like some post-hardcore bands such as Thrice (early) and Senses Fail. They always sit right in the middle, never being completely offensive to the ears but also never really doing anything to stand apart from the pack, themselves. And from the first song on this album, its painfully clear that this is just another post hardcore album in a sea of others. Although it does come out and hit very hard with the first song, its a hookless song that lacks any memorable parts whatsoever. And are there really two vocalists for this band? If so, they're singing voices sound exactly the same. There is a middle of the road scream and a really high pitched scream, so maybe that's where their differences come in.
The biggest problem is that this album all sounds rather similar, it all kind of has that rise and fall casually strolling from song section to song section. Sometimes some songs start out softer than others like Inside Our Skin, which adds a bit of variety but for the most part it all has the same scream clean scream clean scream clean formula. And did I mention that the singers both sound the same, are they brothers or something? They have the exact same voice, it's not like Paul and George where they may sound a little similar but are altogether distinguishable, its literally impossible to tell. It really GRATES on my nerves.
To be fair this album isn't all bad. It does have the occasional pretty guitar line or keyboard line but it all really sounds so manufactured by an assembly line, processing the same posthardcore riffs and fake emotional vocals and then tweaking them very very slightly for each song. This album has too uniform of a sound and after several listens I still can't even pick the songs out from each other for the most part, other than maybe the Dear Death closers and that's mostly because they're the finale and therefore slightly more memorable. It's generic music exectued as generically as possible, nothing more, maybe less.
