Review Summary: Do Miss May I, Miss?
Miss May I are an Ohio based Metalcore band – that about sums it all up….. END OF REVIEW
.jk.
Listening to the full catalogue of Miss May I, one may sit back and think ‘that was pretty good.’
But one will also sit back and think ‘That was the same song, over and over and over again’………..
Miss May I have always been compared to As I Lay Dying or accused of coping them. Which isn’t fair. Levi by all accounts is a good dude, AILD Tim boy – well, you know. But the comparisons are fair, I mean bassist/clean vocalist Ryan is IN AILD now and their songs follow the same basic formula. Big riffs, fast solos, unclean verses and soaring clean choruses. A tried and tested formula countless bands have held onto for dear life.
‘Shadows Inside’ does the unthinkable though. It dares to do what no Miss May I album has done before. It takes the formula and adds in, and I’m going to say this with trepidation – POPPY ELEMENTS. Now, I know when you hear a Metalcore band adding in Poppy Elements you think of Tilian or Tyler screeching over dance beats and chugging riffs. Well this album is not that. By Poppy elements, I mean catchy damn choruses and songs dedicated to clean vocalist Ryan’s above average voice.
All the elements are still here that make Miss May I, Miss May I. The duelling guitar work of B.J and Justin is ever present. ‘Under Fire’ has some nice leadwork throughout and the solo lets us know that B.J can still play. ‘Casualties’ has some beefy riffing, the solo in ‘Death Knows My Name’ is a melodic piece of beauty and try and tell me the intro acoustic guitar to ‘My Destruction’ isn’t from the Metallica 101 playbook. The drums follow your stock standard metalcore drumming for the most part. Blast Beats, half timed breakdowns and the molestation of the snare roll is here, for all to hear. The bass is the bass. You know it’s there because they tell you Ryan plays it, ‘Crawl’ verses really being the only time you can distinctively hear it.
The times where Miss May I step back from the blast beats and duelling guitarwork, are in fact the more impressive moments. Whilst Clean Vocalist Ryan has never had that great a voice, he seems like he is singing to high and reaching far too much on earlier releases, here he sounds good to great. His finally figured out – ‘maybe I don’t need to try and copy every other band’ and ‘Crawl’ is a good example of him sticking to the register he can hit, and it works. He takes the lead on two tracks, ‘Crawl’ and ‘Never Let Me Stay’ the latter being the biggest departure for the band with gang vocals and the complete abundance of any sort of breakdown.
While the softer and more melodic moments make this album standout amongst their previous releases, Miss May I still know how to hit you hard, and Levi still tears his throat apart. ‘My Destruction’ and ‘Swallow Your Teeth’ really allow Levi to shine, which to be honest happens a lot less frequently on this release. Ryan really has taken over here and on most tracks his melodies and chorus lines really do stand out and Levi is kind of in the background. This can be seen as a downside, cause Levi has always been the driving force behind Miss May I’s music, but to me, Ryan does well enough here to make me yes, miss Levi, but also makes me want to hear more of what Ryan can do.
In the end, Miss May I will always be Miss May I. They will always be that band that you probably saw open for someone else, but they were still really tight. They will always be the band that you will confuse with AILD. They may always be the band that you don’t pay attention to. But if you were, Shadows Inside is probably as good as these guys will sound, in the melodic sense anyway.
Standout tracks
Crawl
My Destruction
Swallow Your Teeth
