All That Remains - Overcome
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Free Music Notes for Overcome
Free Music Review: Excellent Musicianship.. but..
Hit: 3 Stars
Let's start this out with how much I love this band. This is actually my first review on Amazon, because I feel it is so important that other people know that this is not at all ATR's finest work.
The lyrics actually reminded me a bit of 'This Darkened Heart,' which is my favorite ATR album. 'The Fall of Ideals' was a GREAT album, however I could it was beginning to head in a direction I wasn't too fond of; being far too polished. The thing I loved about 'This Darkened Heart' was that it had great musicianship, and it was pretty technical, but the guitar lines just dripped with passion (Ex. The solo's, the leads, the twin harmony..)
This album has great things about it, for example the awesome sweep picking solo's. Phenomenal. However, one thing just RUINS this CD for me; the vocals. Absolutely. Listen to the clean vocals on "The Deepest Grey," they are just chilling to hear the growling underlying them. The clean vocals in themselves on Overcome aren't terrible, but they seem so generic and worthless. They lack the energy of the previous albums beyond belief.
I was really looking forward to this CD, and I never thought I'd be giving this band a Three Star review on anything. This album reminds me a lot of a Killswitch Engage album actually, and there's nothing wrong with KSE (I love them), but the problem is that ATR ISN'T KSE. If I want to listen to Killswitch, I'll listen to Killswitch. I don't need All That Remains to fulfill that.
Free Music Review: A small step back, but still enjoyable
Hit: 3 Stars
I spent a good part of 2006 being addicted to their previous release "The Fall of Ideals," I was pretty excited to get this album to my car. I found myself getting into each song for the first 30 seconds before the great melodies and brutal vocals just slammed into a wall. Phil Labonte's beautiful clean vocals seem to have disappeared and been replaced with a generic, ambient and monotone style. His cleans no longer soar they sort of sit back, barley above the guitar work; Making this worse as they are far more frequent than any of his harsher vocals.
Another gripe is the drumming, now I am not a fan of the standard "double kick burst/blast beat" style, but a big draw for me was how ex-drummer Shannon Lucas was able to integrate these without sacraficing quality with lightening speed. On this release the drums are not really audible and when they are, nothing really stands out here especially the lack of fast double bass to keep the pace. I am not sure if this the production's fault or what, but I think if they hadn't dumped former producer Adam D. then maybe some of this could have been avoided.
Still, I have listened to the album a few times through, and it is still catchy and has many good moments that will keep you hooked. I'd recommend this album, as long as you understand that you aren't getting something quite as great as "The Fall of Ideals"
Free Music Review: Mediocre at Best :-(
Hit: 3 Stars
I was going to give this album 4 stars until I went back and listened to The Fall of Ideals. I then realized I was being nice because I love ATR so much. These two albums simply don't compare. The instrumentation on this album is excellent as usual but Labonte has lost his awesome metalcore voice. In Fall of Ideals we see Labonte having a crazy hardcore scream followed by a beautiful voice. On this album I feel that voice has been engineered into an average regular old voice. It is apparent that Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) did not produce this album as he has with all their previous albums. Labonte seems to take a background to the music with his new robotic voice. ATR is obviously trying to go mainstream with this release and in turn killing most of what I loved about them so much.
This album is by no means terrible but if you've been a fan of ATR since it's beginnings I feel you will be disappointed like I was with this new direction the band is taking. There are a few tracks sandwiched in the middle that are similar to Fall of Ideals but this album as a whole is a new sound for the band due mainly to Labonte's new prosthetic voice. Hardcore ATR fans looking for ATR's known sound may want to purchase tracks individually rather than buying the whole album. This album is definately mediocre as a whole in my book. :-(
Free Music Review: Changed Too Much
Hit: 3 Stars
I understand when bands are trying to create a new sound but in this case, ATR changed a lot of things that made them great. The hard screaming is gone, the ripping bass is not as overwhelming, and the voice is almost completely different. I will point out, there are about 3 songs that I liked, but the rest seemed like they were just too weak. This cd is what christian metal bands probably aim for, melodic and simple but I was hoping for hardcore and complex. I dont agree with others saying if this album where a debut album it would be decent. If this was their debut, I would have never looked out for this band, they would have been too soft. They put this cd out too fast, they should have spent more time on it and evaluated what kind of sound they were trying to create. In this case its purely evident that the only idea on the table was to get radio play. The people that become fans of bands off of mainstream radios are not the fans that carry and support bands through their tours and shows. ATR in this case, is trying to impress the wrong fans.Free Music Review: Crashing Down from Lofty Heights
Hit: 3 Stars
It's so sad to see what happened to one of my favorite bands. All That Remains' previous offering, The Fall of Ideals, is my favorite melodic metalcore album to date. The combination of great riffs, amazing vocals (both brutally harsh growling and melodic clean singing), and technical guitar solos put All That Remains on the top of my metal list. Unfortunately, in trying to top The Fall of Ideals, they revamped their entire style and ended up moving backwards rather than forwards. With the almost complete abolishing of growls (instead resorting to primarily slightly distorted clean vox) and the abandonment of solos, All That Remains has followed in the sorry ways of Bullet for My Valentine (another fallen favorite of mine) and turned into a very heavy punk band, but no more. I guess my pick on this album would have to be Two Weeks, based solely on catchyness but hey, when you don't have much else to go on, what can you do? Overall a good album sure, but not what I expected, it's not ATR