Magnetic North

 This time, American powerhouses HOPESFALL are introducing themselves with their new record MAGNETIC NORTH, released this May on TRUSTKILL RECORDS. The band’s roots go back to 1998, when a bunch of barely-grown kids from the small city of Charlotte got together, wanting to make good, noisy music. Just over a year after forming, they’d already put out their first record, THE FRAILTY OF WORDS, which still carried the voice of Doug Venable, who is by now their former singer. Like most bands, Hopesfall picked up a few fans around the world after their debut album. In 2001 the EP NO WINGS TO SPEAK OF followed, and many critics put it on par with records by bands like Underoath and Poison the well. This time around, the guys decided to switch labels; The frailty of words and No wings to speak of came out on TAKEHOLD RECORDS, while the rest of the records came out on the previously mentioned Trustkill records. Besides the label switch, there were many lineup changes in the band, and the most important one has to be the change of singer/frontman. After a few years Doug left the band, but he was soon successfully replaced by Jay Forrest, with whom they recorded another record in 2002 – THE SATELLITE YEARS. Over the next two years the guys racked up one success after another and soon released yet another excellent piece of work, A-TYPES, which gave us the hit we know best, Icarus. So that their fans wouldn’t have to wait too long for a new record, the band hit the road for a few tours with Coheed and Cambria, Eighteen Visions, The Ataris and a few other bands, and we got to see them at the well-known WARPED TOUR and at the TAKE ACTION TOUR together with the bands mentioned above.

 

After a long wait, these hard hitters were back in action this year, as we finally got their latest effort MAGNETIC NORTH, which left me a little disappointed, because I feel like the guys have strayed a bit off the path.But that doesn’t go for all the tracks, just a handful of them. On the first listen I had mixed feelings; some songs are truly great and worth listening to, while others are endlessly long, with no rhyme or reason, which gets a bit tiring and exhausting when you listen to the whole album. The first track on the record is RX CONTENDER THE PRETENDER. It starts in pure Hopesfall style, and the rest of the song is downright excellent too!!!!! What pulled me in was the ass-kicking intro, spiced with a pinch of emo core, plus screaming and great vocals. I have to admit this track is one of my favorites on this record. My excitement over the great opening carries on with SWAMP KITTENS, which surprises me with a squealing guitar intro, a great chorus and an even better ending! I definitely recommend it to everyone who’s into a mix of rock, melodic emo and hardcore. The first disappointment comes with track 3, CUBIC ZIRCONIAS ARE FOREVER. There’s nothing appealing here at all, just bored-sounding singing over slow melodies that only come alive toward the end. The shortest song is definitely I CAN DO THIS ON AN ISLAND, which lasts barely over a minute and which I really enjoy listening to – it’s not too long, and on top of that the only elements making it up are the vocals and a strummed guitar with slow, very melodic lines. With track 5, SECONDHAND SURGERY, I like the intro, but until the chorus the song loses all sense, in my opinion, which is luckily made up for by the energy of the chorus and the run toward the end, which is great this time too! VACATION/ ADD/ VACATION! is a song where I really don’t know whether it’s good or not. Some parts strike me as excellent, while others are incredibly boring. Listen and judge for yourselves! Track 7, named after the record – MAGNETIC NORTH – is a kick in the dark too. Some good ass-kicking at the start, but then it’s the same old story as with the previous ones, in my opinion poorly marked songs. So, boredom! EAST OF 1989; BATTLE OF THE BAY is a little better, with a calm start that slowly builds into (still) calm ass-kicking. I fell in love with the part of the song that rolls in near the end. First there’s slow plucking on the guitar strings, which builds up again and rounds the song out and (lucky me) makes it perfect, and the cherry on top is the noisiness of the track and the emotional vocals. Seriously awesome!!!!!!!!! Another one of my favorite tracks is definitely BIRD FLU. I’m crazy about the intro and the song as a whole… No point wasting words, because everything ties together into an incredibly punchy whole, without the boredom (mentioned so many times already)! Finally we can also spot elements of emo music, and we can rightly agree with some other critics around the world that the band also plays (my favorite genre of music) the much-mentioned emo core. THE CANON is the only purely instrumental song on the record, which surely wins us over with its heavy melodies and at the end blends into the eleventh, once again slightly boring song, DEVIL S CONCUBINE, which has some kind of spacey sounds added in the middle. I have to admit that with this track I felt a certain similarity to the well-known Atreyu. Test it yourselves! HEAD GENERAL HOSPITAL is the second-to-last, fairly bouncy song, which wowed me again with well-played high, squealing guitars. The whole thing is spoiled by a (way too) long ending, which would otherwise be totally OK if it were a bit shorter and more interesting (it’s literally one and the same melody repeated over and over). The last song on the record is PAISLEY. A fairly promising start almost convinces me the track will be excellent, but I soon realize it won’t be quite like that. After listening for a long while, I conclude the track is (pardon my language!) plain crap. Boredom again, dragging on forever, the complete opposite of the first song. The unusual slow melodies and the high vocals, which are really weird for Hopesfall, weaving in and out of each other, didn’t impress me in any way. All I can say is that this track is one of the worst they’ve recorded in their whole career. And just when we think it’s all over, we get surprised by the bonus song SWASKATUAWAN. A track in the style of Dead poetic, with a touch of screaming, plenty of ass-kicking, and easily digestible melodies and vocals. Really good! And that’s how the record Magnetic North wraps up, and we’re all barely able to wait for the next one, which I hope will be free of bigger slip-ups, like, for example, a bit too much boredom on this one.

On top of all that, I have to add that all the songs are a little too long. If the guys had just trimmed them a hair and added a bit more melody, everything would surely sound even more listenable.

It’s only fair to admit that this record really isn’t as good as the earlier ones, but we can only hope the next one will be much better. I don’t doubt that at all, since all they’re missing to reach perfection is a few additions or fixes, and because I know Hopesfall are a really quality band worth listening to, which is definitely true!