Wristmeetrazor : " Replica of a Strange Love"

I really liked their first album so the bar is high for this one. It opens with the kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth bands like Converge started. At this band's heart they are a hard core band. A very emotional one. Even if their vision of hard core just goes back to the days of Myspace, I do not think they are faking the darkness here. The opener is a little more metallic and straight forward , but it works . The second song is more heavy handed and tends to fall more in like with your typical metal core. I need more than just break downs alone. The vocals are at this point in the album more of a snarl that not, though they do employ creepier forms of emoting, In places it reminds me of Marilyn Manson. 

It is when things get really dark for "Love's Labors Lost", that they really grab my attention. Yes it does pull them from the spastic hard core thrashing . That is a good thing. They lash back out with an angrier tone on "Anemic" . Some of the guitar parts are hookier here.  IN some of these moments you can hear where a 90s nu-metal influence is lurking in the shadow. Things get more feral and aggressive with " Eyes of Sulfide". "Dies Irae" is still thrashingly heavy but has more groove and purpose. It is however no as interesting to me as the more industrial tendencies of  the song after it.. There is a more punk vibe to "a Dovetail Romance" . By punk I am talking about Myspace punk.  I like how they balance the hard core break down like riffs with more sonic and melodic sections . 

"This Summer Sorrow" benefits from having more melodic vocals which opens the song up and lets it breathe. That does not mean there is not screaming. There is is it is just used as a more dynamic color rather than solely relied upon.  "All the Way Alive" is a good example of how to make an outro that can still work as a song. I am going to give this one a 9. It falls a little short of what the first album gave in terms of songwriting and dynamics. It is heavier and darker , but in a different way. If you are a fan of the first album you will like this one, perhaps it needs to grow on me a little. Still a 9 is almost perfect and certainly better than any other metal core band I have heard this year.