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Review Summary: "Unconditional", an album by a band perfectly happy to keep doing what they know their fanbase will enjoy. Memphis May Fire are a band full of potential, just look at their first two EP's and debut album "Sleepwalking". The combination they created of southern inspired guitar work in metalcore was fresh and invigorating for the genre. They then released "The Hollow", an amazing album in it's own right, ditching the southern sound they had for a more heavy assault, which many people felt they could build on in order to create something truly great. But then their third album "Challenger", just felt like a rehash of "The Hollow", but without as enjoyable song writing as it's predecessor, and many cringe worthy lyrics. This brings us to album number four, "Unconditional".
It's not like this is the worst album the band could have written by any means, it's just so samey throughout, all the heavy songs sound very similar, and "Speechless" although the most unique song on the album, fails to live up to the ballad on "Challenger", "Miles Away". It has that exact same love song type feel to it but doesn't quite reach the heights that "Miles Away" did. The guitar riffs, while not being horrible, seem to borrow a lot from Challenger, and the song structures and breakdowns have not changed at all. Your general MMF song on "Unconditional" will consist of '5 seconds of ambiance/build up, verse riff, breakdown, chorus, verse riff, breakdown, chorus, breakdown', and me saying that isn't even hyperbole, when an album consists of more than half the songs following this formula, listening to the whole thing in one sitting can almost be sleep inducing.
Matty Mullins has always been a standout member of this band and that doesn't change here. His screams have improved, his fierce growls and powerful highs sound better than ever and he has always been a strong clean vocalist, however his lyrics make me cringe in most songs, despite not being quite as bad as they were in Challenger, his lyrics seem as if they are trying too hard to appeal to Memphis May Fire's teenage fan base, which makes it hard to take a lot of the lyrics seriously. The true shining light on this album however, are the drums. The drummer creates interesting fills and is full of energy throughout, despite how badly the drum sounds, and every instrument on this album for that matter, are produced. The guitars seem too low in the mix, and all I can hear in a lot of riffs is the kick drum, which as stated earlier sounds fake and extremely overproduced.
With the release of "Unconditional", Memphis May Fire will sell records and continue on in their fame filled lives, receiving copious amounts of praise all over their Facebook and other social media websites, and that's what they set out to do. However, a band with such obvious talent could have mixed up their riffs a little, changed up song structures and created an album they have the potential to create, rather than a rehash of something that we've all heard before.
| other reviews of this album |
betray (3.5)
Memphis May Fire proves with every record they put out that they are the undeniable masters of the m...
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review converge
| | | Album Rating: 1.0
I hate this band
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
some of their early stuff wasn't too bad azn!
| | | Album Rating: 1.0
I know
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Just saw them live, they were so freaking good.
Miles away was amazing live.
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Well I have been summoned via a comment on my profile, so here I am to give some criticism.
I've been told multiple times that I write in a casual manner (as a compliment), and I am glad that you also do so, but you write a bit TOO casually in that you use too many commas and don't think about where to end your sentences. If something sounds good when you read it aloud, it will read well too most of the time, but you still have to have a good sentence structure. Re-edit this to remove the run on sentences and use proper grammar.
As for the second paragraph, you're again falling into the trap of assuming the audience knows what you're talking about when you make the Miles Away comparison. If you're going to make it at all, at least give some context as to what kind of song miles away was and what album it was on. I wouldn't make it though, you could get away with simply saying something like "Speechless pales in comparison to the ballads the bands have written in the past".
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In the third paragraph, you also start out with one long ass runon sentence you need to fix. You could also remove the second use of the word "here"; it was a little redudant to begin with (although it does make it sound better in the first part of the sentence) but that second use is just unnecessary. The way you segue from talking about the good drums to the bad production is interesting and works well enough, although I think you could have gotten more detail out of just describing the two separately. You also slip up and switch to first person perspective in the very last sentence, but you can easily fix that by switching "I" to "you" or switching the phrase to "all that can be heard"
I really do like the final paragraph. The only thing I'd change is removing the first person perspective element in the first paragraph (which you could do simply by removing the "I'm sure" and changing MMF to just the full band name), and changing the phrasing a little bit in the second sentence. "It was hoped" kinda sounds like you're being passive aggressive, even though you're just trying to say that YOU hoped in a non first person way. You could change it to "it would have been nice" or something like that, but that's not as big a deal.
Overall this is a big improvement, and as long as you continue to work on your grammar/run on sentences and wording things better/with more flow it'll just get better. Thanks for letting me give you criticism, and you can always summon me via my profile page ^_^
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
will fix up, cheers for the tips once again man, you truly are helping heaps c:
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I have always loved every single release from MMF, but I don't know about this one. It feels uninspired, it was like this album was made for marketability. The last two albums sounded like the same but they were powerful and well executed. I'm kinda disappointed.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
You review is eerily similar to mine.
Glad to see that I'm not the only one that's not a fan of the teenage girl lyrics, and it's cool that you also noted that the drums are pretty on point in this one.
Good review.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
Such a shit album. Fucking hell. SO much potential this band had.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I pretty much agree with you all, I still jam the hollow heaps but I just can't get into this one, it feels so half arsed.
| | | Album Rating: 1.0
Fuck The Hollow, jam Sleepwalking instead
| | | Album Rating: 1.0
Double post. Oops.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Sleepwalking rules too, and whatever EP deuces las cruces was on, that song is nuts
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
The Hollow is much better than Sleepwalking.
And jaspvr, that's the 'Between The Lies' EP.
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Great review. I haven't really gotten into any other release from this band other than their Between the Lies EP. I've heard a few singles off this album and they were alright, but nothing special. I'll probably save listening to this for a rainy day.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
This album, ehh...
Good review tho.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Cheers guys! Yeah not the worst rise-core album ever but still a rise-core album nonetheless
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
rise core is my general way of describing all those rise records bands that sound very similar
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