Review Summary: A little ray of hope for this genre.
Dead Like Juliet created with “Stranger Shores” something what makes almost everything right what most of the other bands in this genre do wrong: they combine great melodies with a fair amount of heaviness and put it into a package with a nearly perfect level of creativity and versatility. Exactly in this category knows the sextet how to score. Fortunately none of these songs sound like each other and we get here ten different songs delivered, where every single one has its individual quality. Well, this is still one or two steps far away from a revolution, but it sounds surprisingly fresh and especially damn good.
After the opener "The Change" I could just come to the conclusion that Evergreen Terrace and While She Sleeps had a baby. If the rest of the album would sound the same, I could finish the review, because everything has already been said. But there is a lot more to talk about.
Many people immediately think of breakdowns when you put the word Metalcore in your mouth, but I can say with a good conscience that this album is not even a little bit contaminated with an excess of breakdowns. I am not even sure if there is any real breakdown on this record. What I noticed through the whole album is the enormous detail level that Dead Like Juliet shows here. Even after multiple hearings, I noticed some new things that I had not discovered before. The album is full of many influences of different genres such as Post-Hardcore, Hardcore Punk & Nu Metal. A few elements, like the riff firework in “Built on Crime”, could even come from Southern Rock. Dead Like Juliet clearly show that they have several facets.
In general, we find on this record a very solid lyrical performance and the song structures are well thought out. The opener "The Change" starts with an organ playing and "Scared" and "Unwanted" contain an acoustic guitar intro. Nu Metal influences can be found, for example, in the song "Those Rivers" in form of short rap parts. In the middle of the album is an almost 3 minute lasting interlude, with spoken word passages, that creates an extremely dense atmosphere and initiate the second half of the album. The level remains consistently high and the album doesn’t lose its tension or energy until the end.
Vocally, it’s nothing that I haven’t heard before. However, I can say that the shouts fit perfectly into the instrumental structure and thus create a dynamic and harmonic impression. In addition, I have to say that vocalist Alexander Thurner has a great vocal range, I’ve never got the feeling that he sounds monotonous at any second. I would even call his versatility on the microphone above average, It has been a while when I heard someone with such high potential.
To be honest, most of the riffs have already been heard somewhere and yet it doesn’t seem to be annoying or boring. Nevertheless, the guitar work is relatively good. More attention I would pay to the excellent drums. The production sounds very clean. It may sound a bit overproduced but doesn’t bother the sound at any minute.
In the end, I'd like to say that this album is definitely one of the most underrated albums I've heard in the past few years and I recommend it to everyone who isn’t afraid of heavier music or especially this genre.
Don’t kill me, this was my first review and english is not my native language. Please forgive me.
