|
A Day To Remember - For Those Who Have Heart Opener “Fast Forward To 2012” kicks things off in typical pop punk fashion with beautifully melodic vocals, before all of sudden you’re smacked in the face with the dirtiest hardcore scream ever, interlaced with group shouts and the drums and guitar shifting accordingly with a powerful hardcore breakdown. This one minute thirty three second track has managed to go from New Found Glory to Comeback Kid to Hatebreed, and the weirdest thing is that there’s no sense of an identity crisis; in fact this short sharp punch in the face sounds….well, right. Things continue in a similar fashion, but with the track lengths thankfully stretched out to a more normal time frame. When you think about it, it’s not that new; bands like Glasseater have been doing this for a long, long time, so why does For Those Who Have Heart still sound fresh? I think it’s got something to do with the fact that where previous bands have always pledged allegiance to either the pop or hardcore world, with the other element just a sugary coating, A Day To Remember seem to give both genres equal air time and respect. It’s definitely got a heavier leaning, but the pop elements are unashamedly flashed, if in varying amounts, in each and every song, and sometimes take over altogether (see “The Price We Pay”). It’s an album with one hell of a wide appeal, from emo kids to dirty hardcore, and covering pretty much everything in between. The only downside is that while there’s no denying that it works, as soon as it’s finished and exits my stereo I’m not sure it has left any sort of lasting effect, and I’m not really itching to put it on again any time soon. This is probably because while each song does manage to mix contrasting genres very well, from song to song there’s little to no variation. The album as a whole becomes a kind of featureless blob, with the exception of a few stand-out tracks like “A Shot In The Dark” and “Here’s To The Past”. But hang on a second – these stand-out tracks are the songs that reject one element of the band’s sound, concentrating on either the beautifully soft or devastatingly crushing vocals. So maybe the mixing of these two elements in the other songs didn’t take quite as well as I first hoped. dan |
