Aight, now that it's leaked, what does everyone think? Personally I absolutely love it, I think it's a great album. I know the whole "heavy verse/catchy chorus/br00t4L breakdown" formula has been done to death by now, but ADTR do it really well.
It's not as good as For Those Who Have Heart, but it's quite a good album. I'll have to listen to For Those Who Have Heart again to figure out the ratio of singing to screaming, but it seems like they did away with a lot of the screaming they used on that album for Homesick. It's sort of annoying how screaming has been relegated to the background in a lot of the songs, but then there are three or four songs where all he does is scream. I liked the balance they used to have. Now it just seems weird. But overall, it's a good album.
Really? I think "The Downfall of Us All" is the best song. The chorus is almost too good, and the screaming in the second verse is the best on the whole album. But, that's just me.
I plan to listen to this but I'm guessing it won't do much to change my opinion on them. Not that I dislike them. Only I'd probably consider them alongside bands like Silverstein in that they're very accomplished at what they do, but are also really generic.
I've had the gang-shout vocals from that stuck in my head since I got the album. It really was a toss-up between Downfall and Wax Larry, but I chose the latter thanks to the breakdown and Mike Hranica.
I'll admit that silverstein is a very generic yet popular band but I think ADTR deserves all the hype they get. I was just searching for other bands like them the other day and all i could do was find alot of what is very generic post hardcore music. I can't think of a single band that manages to blance the growls and vocals together to create the most popply yet hardcore songs ever as well as ADTR... But then, I might be biased considering i grew up on them in Florida and used to see em in small bars and venues alongside other no name bands... and then they exploded!
LOL Do you know what (real, not that it's a genre from the 80's or anything just that a lot of these generic post-hardcore band's aren't really post-hardcore at all) Post-Hardcore is? And do you realise how generic poppy hardcore is? If you said something about the harmonies, melodies, drumming, bass, guitar playing or singing being awesome that i would've bought what you said, but a band's goodness cannot be based on their sing/growl ratio. Although i'm not doubting how good they are. I've listened to a few songs and thought they sounded alright, but you do nothing but make them sound crap .
In all fairness, I dont choose the genre's bands are, they and media do that to themselves. If ADTR is not post-hardcore, how else would you describe them? And also I would assume harmonies and melodies would go hand in hand with describing the poppy feel to it... forgive me if I am wrong or over expected people to understand what I meant. Like Willstar said, its very hard for me to use all the correct musical terms to describe a band, especially genre, considering genres are so easily misinterpreted and have multi meanings... I mean, indie is a term that technically just means your independent, and yet it is commonly applied to more folky and non traditional bands, even if they are not independent at all. My only point was, that in the search for other bands with similar sound to ADTR, I couldn't really find any that compare. Yes there are other great post-hardcore bands out there that are great, but alot of them don't have the same sound. Most of what I was finding both by asking people for other bands and using Last.Fm or just browsing the genre either sounder more like pop or more like screamo or hardcore. I couldn't find a band that managed to combine the 2 together that sounded perfect to me. If someone believes they are generic, they should be able to pull up 15 other bands easily that are just like them... While there may be bands with similar genres and elements as ADTR, I have failed to find one that sounds better. Im not a writer of a publicity magazine and I am not trying to widely promote the band, if you like them you do and if you don't you dont. I was only stating my opinion that while they may live in a generic and worn on genre, that does not mean they have fallen to the low standards as most of that genre goes. Every genre as a few bands that really stand out and the rest just kind of sound like generic copies of one another, but that does not make the band that stands out any less talented, they just happen to work in a sea of untalented bands that make the genre feel worn out and the same old.
Yeah i realise it's hard to describe why you like a band, I used have the same problem so nowadays i just call bands i like Epic and Awesome. I don't really listen to A Day To Remember as i said, so I was in no way commenting they were generic. Also, I think maybe you should listen to Haste The Day's album Pressure The Hinges if you like good mix of screaming and singing. Although not all songs have good balance either way, there are quite a few that do. It was one of the albums that got me into the genres of core. Anyway, a tinge off topic but... I'm really not sure how much longer metalcore could possibly last before it is forced to branch out (bring on jazz metalcore), in the whole of 2008 I can't really name one really good metalcore album. And the ones that were pretty good, were from the bands that had slightly altered their sound. 36 Crazyfists went into Southern Hardcore territory in their best moments, and Trivium's Shogun is almost Thrash Metal. Am i missing something or is metalcore closer to the end than it's popularity might show? Edit: Oh i guess there was Bleeding Through's Declaration and Unearth's The March, but Declaration really depended on it's darkness and brutalness and The March on it's insane shredding and well triggered breakdowns.
The problem with any genre is that when it's around long enough all the bands start to sound the same.
I listened to this album a few times now and it just sounds...bland. Wax Larry is the only song that really stands out to me.
But i think it's interesting that the genre gets more popular by the day, when it's music is getting blander and blander at the same rate.
You answered your own question (even though you didn't really ask one). It's getting blander because more bands are playing that style. I don't think it's the other way around, really.