Attack Attack! (US), the Ohio metalcore band credited (or should that be blamed?) for the creation of crabcore are back with their more ‘mature’ sound. The thing is, their more ‘mature’ sound is djent. Yep that’s right, everyone’s favourite generic scenecore band have jumped on 2010’s latest bandwagon.
First off, take a look at the album cover. It looks like a pair of cocks (funnily enough, that’s quite representative of this album). Whoever approved this cover should probably be fired.
Opener The Revolution starts with a typical djent riff, followed by a standard metalcore chorus and a horribly saccharine chorus. Then comes the breakdown. All ten tracks on this album follow this exact same formula: Riff, heavy verse, clean chorus, breakdown (almost always preceded by a lyric that is just aching to be posted all over Tumblr or pasted on a t-shirt in Impact font). There’s the occasional bit of dubstep thrown in for good measure too.
This Means War is derivative of everything else going on in this ‘scene’ right now and is lacking in any shred of originality.
As bad as this album is, it’s miles ahead of anything AA! have released before. There are some rays of hope though, hidden throughout the album there is the odd moment of greatness, a chorus that you can’t help but sing along to or a riff that gets your head bobbing. This Means War is a step in the right direction, but it’s a fair few steps away from where a band needs to be in this day and age.
