Upon first listen to this album there are a few things that come to mind right away. The first is the passion that radiates from this band. The second is when I saw them last summer, after their performance all a friend of mine could say was wow, this is what emotional hardcore should sound like. And yes I agree with him 100%. So if you put those two things together you are looking at one heck of an album and that is exactly what this is. For me it is one of those albums I can listen to from start to finish. There is not a weak track on there.

After those two things, the next thing I noticed was the clean vocals. They have a new rhythm guitarist, Michael McGough who handles the clean vocals. I must say that his vocals are amazing. He has a Jonny Craig feel to him, which I of course love. We get a taste of his vocals right away in the first song, “Mediocre Shakespeare”. Another element that sticks out is the distribution of vocals between spoken word, screaming and singing. So there is something here for everyone to enjoy. If you are not a fan of two of the three, there is still enough of the one style you may like. I really like that about this album. Because of the vocals on this album I feel it will help them to tour with just about anybody. They can tour with Levi the Poet to ’68 to Chiodos. But don’t get me wrong, it’s just not the vocals that stick out. This is a band that has grown so much since their first release. They have a more polished sound. You really hear it in the guitar playing. It is almost like they relearned how to play, if that makes sense? You can really hear this in the track, “Deaths Great Black Wing Scrape The Air”. If you are not sold on the vocals, then look no further than the third track, “L’exquisite Douleur”. I am a hardcore kid so I like screaming and rough vocals but man on this track the clean vocals are so beautiful.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CkqhWIrMYM[/youtube]

Above I talked about passion. My favorite track, “Mothers” on the album is chock full of it. It isn’t often that a song can bring tears to these eyes but holy cow, this track did that the first time I heard it. I had to listen to it again and again and again. Before I knew it, I had listened to it about eight times. It is obvious that his mother has passed but before he gets to that part of the song it reminded me of my own mother; how she loves others in this world and how we all need to love that way. But the thing about this song that really sticks out is the day I first heard it; it was on Mother’s Day. The passion is this song is what makes music so wonderful. The passion is this song is what makes music a coping skill for so many people. As I’m writing this review I am listening to “Mothers” on repeat yet again. We need more of this.

A lot of times in this day and age we download and order albums. I do as well. Every once in a while an album comes along that knocks me off my feet, an album such as this one. I still have not purchased this album. The reason is this; I want to buy it from them on tour. So I can support them and also let them know how much this album has impacted my life.

Score: 5/5

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