For a long time, I refused to listen to Atreyu. I didn’t really know why, but since I had full faith in my reasoning abilities (but not so much in my memory), I naturally concluded that I must have had a real good reason for my bias, which had since been washed away by the er.. tides of time.
But one fine day – scratch that – one utterly miserable day, in a fit of pique born of months and months of using a slow Internet connection and Grooveshark streaming worse than a tube of toothpaste, I decided to abandon the hunt for new music and browse instead through some old music I already had but never really listened to. Enter Atreyu.
I listened to their ‘A Death-Grip On Yesterday’ first, and while I really like the album, it had nowhere near the effect on me that ‘Congregation of the Damned’ did, so the latter’s what I’ll talk about.
Congregation of the Damned starts off with a very good, if conventional metalcore song called ‘Stop! Before It’s Too Late And We’ve Destroyed It All’. The lyrics aren’t conventional metalcore though – they’re misanthropic in an eco-warrior sort of way that I thoroughly loved. In fact, the chorus with its gang chants of ‘Kill! Kill! Multiply! Till the skies are black and the rivers dry!’ is one sticky little refrain that I simply can’t get out of my environmentalist head. However, while ‘Stop! Before…’ is a great song, it’s unlikely to become anybody’s favourite from this album.
Lyrics Video: Stop! Before It's...
This album is hard to classify because it tries so hard to be eclectic. Halfway through a song you’re ready to dismiss as meh metalcore, a blazing fast solo appears out of nowhere just to disconcert you. Halfway through a song you’re ready to dismiss as another love song, an ear-splitting scream appears to throw your pigeonholing right out of the window.
‘Gallows’ is a great, great song. Brian Saller, the drummer, is the one singing during the chorus, and once you start to become familiar with his delivery, you realize that most, if not all, the songs on this album have him singing the choruses. Alex Varkatzas, the ‘lead’ vocalist, the chief lyricist and frontman, takes up the verse singing and screaming duties.
This combination works. ‘Gallows’ has an almost power metal feel to its soaring vocals, clean chording and simple, fast beats. Brian Saller’s voice is strongly reminiscent of Edguy and if you go further back, even has shades of Bruce Dickinson with its tremulous high notes. When combined with Varkatzas’s more typical ‘modern’ metalcore voice, it works a tangy treat. Atreyu knows this because pretty much every song on this album uses the dual vocalist formula.
Video: Gallows
‘Storm to Pass’ is almost an identical twin of ‘Gallows’ with a slightly less catchy chorus, and with some additional - spectacular - soloing to fill up the bridge. Which one of the two do I like better? I’m leaning towards ‘Gallows’ at the time of writing this review, but that wasn’t always the case, and I’ll let you decide which one wins.
Video: Storm To Pass
My favourite song on this album is probably ‘So Wrong’ and - interestingly - it’s almost fully Varkatzas. His smooth transitions from whispery verses to rising, pleading shouts to agonized screams and back make for one mesmerizing song. There’s even a quirky little solo in there, and also a bit of Saller in the choruses, but nothing ever feels out of place.
Lyrics Video: So Wrong
‘Black Days Begin’ is almost hard rock with its slow, punchy beats, chugging guitars, and a catchy, catchy chorus. I seem to be repeating myself, eh? Well, Atreyu, even in their otherwise most generic, ‘filler’ songs on this album, have hit on catchy choruses. ‘Black Days Begin’ has a bit of screaming (that spoils my ‘hard rock’ tag a bit, but well, I did call their music ‘eclectic’ earlier), and a solo that’s eerily similar to Megadeth’s ‘Sweating Bullets’ (let’s call it a ‘tribute’, shall we?), but the parts fit together without too much creaking.
‘Ravenous’ is rollicking fast and even more reminiscent of a power metal anthem than the other songs on this album. It’s not a song I would often skip on a full album listen, but it’s not a song that’d make stop what I’m doing just to listen.
‘Coffin Nails’ has some neat riffs and yet another soaring, clean sung Saller chorus. It quickly dropped off my favourites list though, for some reason I haven’t figured out. Having said that, this is a song you’ll definitely enjoy on your first listen.
‘Wait For You’ is the obligatory love song with the keyboards, the soft angsty crooning and the gradual rise to an uplifting crescendo. For something that’s another example of a much abused formula, it’s not a bad song at all.
Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a cliché because there’s something about this album that strikes you as startlingly familiar, even on your first listen. Atreyu, perhaps in their hunt for radio success, have simplified their music. When there’s conflict between catchy but repetitive versus creative but possibly dissonant, Atreyu have always gone for the former. The chording is simple in most of the songs, but you can see that it’s not because the guitarists ain’t got it – there’s enough of soloing on the album to put that doubt to bed. The drumming is occasionally fast, but always simple. The choruses are always catchy, and always simple.
If Atreyu haven’t really experimented with song structures, where does the ‘eclectic’ bit come in? The styles they play – they do a great job mixing the punk vocals with the metalcore vocals with the power metal vocals with the pop vocals; the alternative rock guitaring with the speed metal soloing, with the hard rock riffing - that’s where they’ve really mixed things up.
If you’re an alternative rock fan who likes a bit of screaming, you’ll love this album. If you’re a metalcore fan, so little screaming may be disappointing at first, but you’ll grow to love this album. Lastly, and here’s where I’ll put my neck on the line, if you fancy a bit of Maiden or good ol’ heavy metal, I suspect you’ll enjoy quite a few songs on this album.
But one fine day – scratch that – one utterly miserable day, in a fit of pique born of months and months of using a slow Internet connection and Grooveshark streaming worse than a tube of toothpaste, I decided to abandon the hunt for new music and browse instead through some old music I already had but never really listened to. Enter Atreyu.
I listened to their ‘A Death-Grip On Yesterday’ first, and while I really like the album, it had nowhere near the effect on me that ‘Congregation of the Damned’ did, so the latter’s what I’ll talk about.
Congregation of the Damned starts off with a very good, if conventional metalcore song called ‘Stop! Before It’s Too Late And We’ve Destroyed It All’. The lyrics aren’t conventional metalcore though – they’re misanthropic in an eco-warrior sort of way that I thoroughly loved. In fact, the chorus with its gang chants of ‘Kill! Kill! Multiply! Till the skies are black and the rivers dry!’ is one sticky little refrain that I simply can’t get out of my environmentalist head. However, while ‘Stop! Before…’ is a great song, it’s unlikely to become anybody’s favourite from this album.
Lyrics Video: Stop! Before It's...
This album is hard to classify because it tries so hard to be eclectic. Halfway through a song you’re ready to dismiss as meh metalcore, a blazing fast solo appears out of nowhere just to disconcert you. Halfway through a song you’re ready to dismiss as another love song, an ear-splitting scream appears to throw your pigeonholing right out of the window.
‘Gallows’ is a great, great song. Brian Saller, the drummer, is the one singing during the chorus, and once you start to become familiar with his delivery, you realize that most, if not all, the songs on this album have him singing the choruses. Alex Varkatzas, the ‘lead’ vocalist, the chief lyricist and frontman, takes up the verse singing and screaming duties.
This combination works. ‘Gallows’ has an almost power metal feel to its soaring vocals, clean chording and simple, fast beats. Brian Saller’s voice is strongly reminiscent of Edguy and if you go further back, even has shades of Bruce Dickinson with its tremulous high notes. When combined with Varkatzas’s more typical ‘modern’ metalcore voice, it works a tangy treat. Atreyu knows this because pretty much every song on this album uses the dual vocalist formula.
Video: Gallows
‘Storm to Pass’ is almost an identical twin of ‘Gallows’ with a slightly less catchy chorus, and with some additional - spectacular - soloing to fill up the bridge. Which one of the two do I like better? I’m leaning towards ‘Gallows’ at the time of writing this review, but that wasn’t always the case, and I’ll let you decide which one wins.
Video: Storm To Pass
My favourite song on this album is probably ‘So Wrong’ and - interestingly - it’s almost fully Varkatzas. His smooth transitions from whispery verses to rising, pleading shouts to agonized screams and back make for one mesmerizing song. There’s even a quirky little solo in there, and also a bit of Saller in the choruses, but nothing ever feels out of place.
Lyrics Video: So Wrong
‘Black Days Begin’ is almost hard rock with its slow, punchy beats, chugging guitars, and a catchy, catchy chorus. I seem to be repeating myself, eh? Well, Atreyu, even in their otherwise most generic, ‘filler’ songs on this album, have hit on catchy choruses. ‘Black Days Begin’ has a bit of screaming (that spoils my ‘hard rock’ tag a bit, but well, I did call their music ‘eclectic’ earlier), and a solo that’s eerily similar to Megadeth’s ‘Sweating Bullets’ (let’s call it a ‘tribute’, shall we?), but the parts fit together without too much creaking.
‘Ravenous’ is rollicking fast and even more reminiscent of a power metal anthem than the other songs on this album. It’s not a song I would often skip on a full album listen, but it’s not a song that’d make stop what I’m doing just to listen.
‘Coffin Nails’ has some neat riffs and yet another soaring, clean sung Saller chorus. It quickly dropped off my favourites list though, for some reason I haven’t figured out. Having said that, this is a song you’ll definitely enjoy on your first listen.
‘Wait For You’ is the obligatory love song with the keyboards, the soft angsty crooning and the gradual rise to an uplifting crescendo. For something that’s another example of a much abused formula, it’s not a bad song at all.
Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a cliché because there’s something about this album that strikes you as startlingly familiar, even on your first listen. Atreyu, perhaps in their hunt for radio success, have simplified their music. When there’s conflict between catchy but repetitive versus creative but possibly dissonant, Atreyu have always gone for the former. The chording is simple in most of the songs, but you can see that it’s not because the guitarists ain’t got it – there’s enough of soloing on the album to put that doubt to bed. The drumming is occasionally fast, but always simple. The choruses are always catchy, and always simple.
If Atreyu haven’t really experimented with song structures, where does the ‘eclectic’ bit come in? The styles they play – they do a great job mixing the punk vocals with the metalcore vocals with the power metal vocals with the pop vocals; the alternative rock guitaring with the speed metal soloing, with the hard rock riffing - that’s where they’ve really mixed things up.
If you’re an alternative rock fan who likes a bit of screaming, you’ll love this album. If you’re a metalcore fan, so little screaming may be disappointing at first, but you’ll grow to love this album. Lastly, and here’s where I’ll put my neck on the line, if you fancy a bit of Maiden or good ol’ heavy metal, I suspect you’ll enjoy quite a few songs on this album.
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