Cries of the Past

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my expression when I first heard this. This isn’t the –best- album I’ve heard, but when I was expecting to hear more uninspired Jesus trash, instead I hear RIIIIFFS, SOLOS, RIFFFS and more SOLOS among the breakdowns and screaming vocals.

The guitar work is the best Underoath is probably going to get. There is more depth and variety to the music, it’s not just tremolo-breakdown-scream4Jesus-breakdown-tremolo-screamsomemore-etc… the songs are long and intricate, probably even bordering on the realm of progressive. It gives me something that I can actually head bang to. The bass even comes through at times, and while it still sounds average, at least it has a part in providing a neat introduction to one of the songs.

One of the biggest improvements are the vocals. They aren’t the substandard metalcore screaming yelling bitching yadda yadda yadda, but instead they are more evil sounding screaming yelling bitching yadda yadda yadda. Okay, so there isn’t all that much improvement. However, there is no clean singing during the Jesus parts, and that at the very least makes these songs enjoyable. I don’t want to hear about Jesus, and the indecipherable barks of Dallas Taylor allows me to enjoy the song without the dreadful lyrics getting in my face. I do mean dreadful, as one thing that has remained constant throughout the history of Underoath is their uninspired Christian lyrics dealing with OMG my girlfriend broke up with me / I broke up with her / she died somehow / she became a Muslim :’( and other shit… There is more variety to the vocals at times, sometimes even incorporating a falsetto scream ala Iron Maiden.

There are a lot of good parts to this album, and even if you despise Christianity like me, you might enjoy it if you just pretend that they are singing about Satan and stuff. At times the music is even inspiring. I dare say I do like this, even if it is Underoath. There are times when it devolves into emo, but only during the spoken word parts, such as the intro to the song Cries of the Past. This is above-average Metalcore, if I can even call it just that.