Review Summary: I signed up for this

Once upon a time, apes climbed down from the trees and became humans who invented things such as the alphabet and gunpowder and ice cream and cash fucking money, which they used to perpetuate a logistically fiendish cycle of befriending, extorting and killing one another, which was debateably very good until some point in the earlyish 2010s when the central priorities of scene music shifted from 3rd-hand At the Gates worship with terrible inhaled screams and cheese grater breakdowns to stadium-ready bilge with negative levels of friction, Catholic cathedral-grade polish, and enough cookie cutter Bastille baby choruses to sustain the greater part of Jeremy Renner's back catalogue. Here, the whole evolutionary framework collapses and the realists among us yeet ourselves back into the ocean forevermore. Wind Walkers aren't the worst band in this style because they neither created it nor embody its most grating attributes distinctively enough to claim ownership to them: they make a stink with the occasional misplaced breakdown (see the coda of "The Overlook") and backfiring hook (flogging arena-level traction out of just leave me in a bodybag is quite simply not it), but the meat of these songs is frankly too template to attach anything close to a strong feeling to, and the band are generally successful at navigating the various shifts of gear required to turn verses into choruses into bridges into wishfully brutal histrionics and back again. None of this makes What If I Break? anything more or less than an NPC whinge trip. The 'word' band here is to be read in the most mechanical sense possible, as each instrument (while perfunctory in its role) is mixed together with all the chemistry of an intercontinental Zoom call and has next to nothing in the way of individual flair to fall back on (momentary hints at prog pyrotechnics in "Drowning Hymns" are about as close as we get). Even the strongest moments here reek of deja vu cadences ("Hangfire") and sick puppy lyricism (do they like me now? mhmm). I am sure there are people who will enjoy this record.



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user ratings (25)
3.2
good


Comments:Add a Comment 
JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
September 28th 2024


62162 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

my submission for the Review a Random Album Contest

apologies to the (*checks ratings*) 12 people who apparently liked this album; think it's for the best that i didn't go into more detail

Dedes
Contributing Reviewer
September 28th 2024


10488 Comments


Cause one of us is going
One of us is going down

Never thought I'd see a Sick Puppy reference in the year of our lord 2024

DadKungFu
Staff Reviewer
September 28th 2024


5389 Comments


Opening sentence set an impossibly high bar that the rest of this review just demolished

FowlKrietzsche
Contributing Reviewer
September 29th 2024


1796 Comments


"I am sure there are people who will enjoy this record."

Spectacular closer omfg

Mort.
September 29th 2024


26049 Comments


hhahahahaha johnny got assigned shitty arena core? perfect

AnimalForce1
Contributing Reviewer
September 29th 2024


976 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Jeeeeez that was a hell of an opening sentence! Great rev Johnny, I am definitely one of the people who like this album, but I can absolutely see why people wouldn't. Almost made me cackle in a public coffee shop

AnimalForce1
Contributing Reviewer
September 29th 2024


976 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Found this band through Hangfire, and it's a good jam, but nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering

veninblazer
October 1st 2024


16918 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

This was a good listen I nearly forgot about it

pizzamachine
October 9th 2024


27617 Comments


Lols good review



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