Album Review: 'The Fall Of Ideals' by All That Remains

[Note to admin: would it be possible to move this to the 'Misc. Reviews' section? I've tried posting it there but it says I don't have permission. Thanks. It seems the site keeps thinking I'm logged out?]

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o...llofideals.jpg

I thought I'd write a small review about an album I've been listening to quite a bit of late, 'The Fall Of Ideals' by All That Remains.

I bought this album based on the strength of a track entitled 'six' which I'd recently heard quite a bit whist trying to get better on it in Guitar Hero 2 (I'm only on medium though so lack some of guitar shredding skills on my little white plastic axe). Having heard the track numerous times whist trying to attain that extra star, I really began to enjoy the tune and decided to get the album that it can be found on so I could hear more. All I can say is that I wasn't disappointed.

Firstly I'd like to say that I like heavy music very much and I like all sorts of metal (too many sub-genres to mention). This album excels in my opinion because it reminds me (in positive ways) of all the different sorts of metal that I like.

The musicianship on display is excellent and all the songs rip along at a fair pace and it's over before you know it. All tracks are around the 3-4 minute (ish) mark and tend to feature a variety of vocal styles, usually a mixture of aggressive vocal approaches and cleaner singing parts. The vocals here are impressively versatile with the singer clearly displaying a good set of lungs or asbestos coated vocal chords as he manages to get a plethora of metal-isms out of his mouth hole, usually over the span of a single track. There's quite a variety: hardcore type shouting, death metal style growls and grunts, almost black metal style raspier sections and then the cleaner lines which are usually the choruses. These are all handled extremely well and sung very well too, being very memorable and helping add variety to the tracks. I think it sounds great and it reminds me of various metal styles without being bogged down too much by any. There's no high pitch stuff though, so if that's your bag or you don't like "shouty" metal then you may not like this album at all. If that's the case then you're sadly missing out as the music on display here is awesome.

Like the vocals, the music itself incorporates various styles. Without doing a track by track rundown I can say that there's allsorts; fast riffs, slower crunchy bits, techinical sections, guitar harmonies, blast beats, chuggy bits, thrashy bits, grindy bits, tuneful bits etc - elements of all the different sorts of metal I like, wrapped up in catchy memorable songs (some might say 'commercial' but I'm thinking 'accessible' as there's still plenty of bite there and there's no ballads). The guitar playing is wonderful and of particular note are the drums which are superb, really driving everything on but maintaining quite a precise and technical sound.

It's very metal-core through and through though, very aggressive and thrashy sounding, kind of like Trivium to an extent in that they seem to be influenced by a variety of metal genres and sub genres, but to my ears has something which lifts it above a lot of the competition. I don't know what it is, but it's keeping me coming back to this album, time and time again.

If you like modern heavy music/metal and aren't a total traditionalist then I'd would recommend you check it out forthwith - I don't think you'll be disappointed as it's truly great stuff.

For any one vaguely interested there's some 30 second previews up on last.fm and there's vids on YouTube: http://www.last.fm/music/All+That+Remains

I've only liked a certain few songs from All that Remains, but most of them are from this album. I'd say check iTunes and only get a few certain songs you'll like, just to be safe(and to have your wallet full.)