Artist: Haste The Day
Label: Solid State Records
Release: 2005
Rating: 3/5
When I got this disc in my hands, I thought it was the new Severina album, at least until I took a closer look at the cover! For anyone who knows its predecessor “Burning Bridges”, let me say that with the new album Haste The Day stay stylistically loyal to the course that record set out. These guys move in the same musical neighborhood as Across Five Aprils, From Autumn to Ashes, It Dies Today and Atreyu.
So the new record serves up the same sharp mix of fast, devastating metal riff extravagance, with the occasional dash of emo-core. “When Everything Falls” is a marathon embodiment of rapid-fire riffing, breakneck transitions and ear-shredding screaming, and the guys successfully calibrate all of it by adding melodic harmonies that, almost like clockwork, take up their post in the choruses, which nudges the band right up to the doorstep of the “mainstream”, or rather, radio-friendly frequencies!
The shape of the songs follows what was achieved on “Burning Bridges”, and Haste The Day run the new album’s tracks through a tried-and-tested mold that they’ve simply mastered and into which they’re currently pouring most of their musical religion. The result is an otherwise high-voltage adventure across the album’s short running time! At the same time, thanks to the repetitive song template, the album is predictable and quick to win you over, and once the songs get into your ear, they get in there aggressively fast, so they also get processed through your stomach just as fast, and the thing soon ends up in some corner of your room, digested, dusty and forgotten by God himself.
More variety definitely wouldn’t hurt the band in the future. The album contains an excellent cover of Goo Goo Dols from “A Boy Named Goo”, titled Long Way Down, which proves the guys are definitely not without talent. These guys can play solos, as the excellent solo in Long Way Down shows, though it’s also the only guitar solo moment on the record. Punchy and galloping, with a recognizably current sound, instantly catchy, short and to the point. In short, nothing special. May the fourth album bring a bit of the courage of musical experimentation to the band, because it could easily happen that Haste The Day turn into a repetitive, self-cloning band with no creative fire, craving nothing but commercial success. For those of you looking for the real expression of aggression, rage, obscurity, hell-worship and occultism, tribute to death and doom, Haste The Day can bring on a diabetic attack, so run away from Haste The Day as far as your legs will carry you. Metalcore for spoiled teenage girls (like the “Severina” from the cover) who are in a phase of absolute defiance toward their parents and dream about naughty boys from the pages of gossip magazines!
Lineup
Jimmy Ryan – vocals
Brennan Chaulk – guitar
Jason Barnes – guitar
Mike Murphy – bass
Devin Chaulk – drums
Production
Garth Richardson
Tracklist
1. Fallen
2. Perfect Night, The
3. Walk On
4. When Everything Falls
5. If I Could See
6. Walls And Fear
7. For A Lifetime
8. This Time It’s Real
9. Bleed Alone
10. InstruMETAL
11. All I Have
12. Long Way Down
Album length: 35.52
