Review Summary: A few catchy songs can't make up for a boring and redundant latter half.
Four years between albums can seem like quite a while. A lot of things can happen: members can come and go, sounds could evolve and grow, and personal tastes can become quite refined. Being an active band for nearly a decade, California hardcore band, The Warriors, have never been known for pushing the envelope of extreme music and their first full length in over four years, their fourth album,
See How You Are, is a perfect example of a band that is comfortable in what they play in. You would think that after coming into the music foray after such an extended leave of absence, without putting the infamous ‘hiatus’ tag on themselves, that the next batch of sounds to come from the band would be something fresh or interesting; at the very least, something that can grab the listeners attention quickly to regain relevancy after such a leave. Sadly, this is not present on
See How You Are, yet it doesn’t necessarily detract from the overall feeling of the album, but this works both ways for The Warriors.
See How You Are doesn’t grab your attention instantly. It is not one of those hardcore albums that, right from the very first note, grabs you by the jugular and drags you through sh
it and piss. No, on the eponymous opening track, The Warriors start off their album with an anthem track that carries plenty of tremolo reverb before officially starting the album off with track ‘The War Unseen’. It would be easy to just stop the album right from the get go, as the initial lack of bite can turn off a lot of the average hardcore listeners. The album itself really does not start to take off until around the tracks ‘Seize the Fire’ and ‘Pit of Shame’. This is where the true heaviness of The Warriors comes to the forefront as these two tracks feature heavy breakdown laden guitar riffs, coupled with a stellar performance from vocalist Marshall Lichtenwaldt (who recently got some airtime with Parkway Drive latest album). While the breakdowns on ‘Seize the Fire’ can get a bit repetitive, the leads felt on the track more than make up for it and keeps the listener entertained throughout. ‘Pit of Shame’ builds upon the strengths of the previous track, with another breakdown laden opener that will instantly get heads banging and the bros in the pit to commit acts of violence. This shows the talent that The Warriors have at crafting tracks that, while not reinventing the wheel on hardcore music, are more than adequate enough to be kept on repeat for multiple playthroughs.
Unfortunately, after the said tracks is where
See How You Are beings to falter and it ultimately falls short of being anything memorable in the long run. The latter half The Warriors fourth album makes it apparent that they have become a bit too comfortable after four years of relative inactivity. The Warriors begin to experiment with the sounds of metallic hardcore and borderline hard rock, which if you think that sounds bad on paper it's because it actually is. ‘Here We Go Again’ while showing some interesting life in the riffs, is an extremely boring track with a subpar ending guitar lead, coupled with an even more boring main guitar riff that is to the tune of one single note, repetitively chugging to nothing. ‘Subirse El Muerto’ starts off almost like a Slipknot B-side that eventually evolves into yet another boring metallic hardcore track that fails to capture the attention of the listener. There’s just not enough original material on the last half of
See How You Are to keep anyone satisfied, even a guest spot by Parkway Drive vocalist, Winston McCall, on track ‘Panic’ isn’t enough to get the gears moving again for The Warriors.
It’s almost sad,
See How You Are starts off harmless enough, starts to gain your attention, and then right when you think it might turn into something, it becomes nothing. While it becomes very apparent early into the album that there isn’t going to be too much new ideas, The Warriors do a stand up job crafting music that they are clearly comfortable in making and
See How You Are is testament of that. Too many ideas are rehashed throughout, not enough memorable songs, and just overall redundancy and boredom makes The Warriors first album in over four years one that will unfortunately fail to make any lasting waves in hardcore. A couple fun songs can’t make up for a subpar latter half.
