Forging a Future Self

Not much makes me more frustrated than seeing potentially good music get dragged down by elements which could have been done much better. While After the Burial would go on to become one of the more respected names in progressive deathcore thanks to Rareform and its tight blend of melodies and well-controlled djenty breakdowns, there is a reason most of us ignore their first album, it's bad. There are hints of future greatness to come on Forging a Future Self, but for the most part, it's much messier and more annoying than its successor.

Forging a Future Self is hampered by three main things, the production, the singer, and the songwriting. The production sounds extremely crackly and cheap, taking a lot of strength away from the music. It makes the drums sound extremely artificial, not in a well-produced way that works like with Fear Factory or Dimmu Borgir, but in a way that makes it very obnoxious and fake sounding, like the drummer's using cheap, plastic, toy drum sticks. This also makes the guitars sound static-y and ruins any strength the breakdowns would have going for them by making them limp and full of treble. The singer is no prize; granted his growls are acceptable, but everything else he does is terrible. When he tries to do shouting, he sounds like Trendkill-era Phil Anselmo with bronchitis, and when he goes for high shrieks, he either sounds like Cam Pipes with a hole in his throat, or puts on this shrill and grating, phlegmy swamp monster voice which is disgusting all on its own. The songs also aren't strong in most cases. There is a great melody every now and again, and the song "Isolation Theory" is a great, smooth-flowing piece that shows what these guys can do when taking time to create a song, even if the "WOO!" in the middle is just silly. Most of the songs are more like "Fingers Like Daggers" where much of it consists of a mixture of decent melodies, annoying weedling, and random tinny breakdowns that come out if nowhere and get in the way. All of this leaves us a disjointed album with painfully bad production, a grating singer, and composers who, while talented, are still very much still getting the hang of their craft.

Forging a Future Self is an appropriate title since their future work is far superior to this in every musical sense. While later albums would explore mixing a fast and high-flying sound that blended catchiness and technicality. This just sounds like the messy embryonic stages of that. It's badly produced and immature, but there is potential here. After the Burial may not be some one-dimensional deathcore act, but they still have a long way to go from this hardscrabble debut.