Atreyu has always been a band at the forefront of the metalcore genre. Fusing heavy riffs and harsh vocals with catchy hooks and upbeat choruses has always meant the band has had a solid following throughout their career. Following their return from hiatus in 2014, the band showed their maturity by releasing Long Live, an album that maintained the bands core strengths, but experimented with their songwriting delivery. Continuing on with this rejuvenation, the band has now returned in 2018 with follow-up album In Our Wake.
Sporting more of a classic rock vibe than the metalcore strength that fans fell in love with, title track In Our Wake starts the album off strongly. It’s an interesting track, but one that keeps a decent tempo and has an interesting and memorable hook. House of Gold‘s rollicking beat makes it instantly memorable, with the predominantly clean vocals being a focal point and harsh vocals only being interspersed. The solo stands out as one of the best on the album, and is quite unique in terms of its guitar tone. This is followed by The Time Is Now, an anthemic track that could quite easily become a stadium staple accompanying a sports teams entrance. It’s reaffirming, it’s inspiring, but it’s steady pace makes sure that it’s emotive side is conveyed succinctly.
Nothing Will Ever Change is one of the closest things that cans can expect to early era Atreyu on this album. Its ferocious from the first beat, calming in its chorus, and is one of the finer examples of the entire band firing on all cylinders in recent years. Blind, Deaf and Dumb was next and felt a bit out of place. While it has a very strong chorus, the nu-Metal undertones in the verses and the crowd chanted refrain felt like a bit of a detractor. It’s one that fans will either love or loathe, but I guess only time will tell.
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Marking the mid point of the album, Terrified is the true gem of this album. There is nothing to fault about this song, and while it is probably the only real ‘ballad’ style song on here, it’s deliverance is just perfect. Safety Pin resumes the bands heavier roots, with great vocalised verses bounding between both vocalists before the charismatic chorus kicks in. Such is the strength of this song that it would be a shame if this song didn’t appear as its own single, or a staple in the bands live performance. Into The Open mixes the best of both Atreyu’s ferocious and calming writing styles, blending each into a track that has a ton of emotion in it.
While lyrically very strong, Paper Castle has a greatly slower pace, focusing more on its tone, and it’s indie inspired chorus has quite a catchy hook about it, but it just didn’t seem to have the punch of some of the other songs. No Control on the other hand has a crowd chanted chorus, rousing solo and percussive led beat, providing a perfect platform for its very real and reflective lyrics to shine.
Penultimate track Anger Left Behind deserves far more praise than can be put into words. It’s early era breakdowns flickering perfectly with spoken lyrics during its verse before the brilliant vocal performance cascades over a beautiful choral harmony. Closing track Superman ensures that anyone that sees the album out the whole way through is rewarded with a stand out track to close it out. Featuring M Shadows (Avenged Sevenfold) and Aaron Gillespie (Underoath) as guest vocalists, this track works beautifully by building emotion mid verse before having the chorus escalating that to levels demanding a reaction. It’s a perfect way to close out the album.
Overall the lyrical themes across the entire album hit the mark perfectly, asking the listener to take an introspective view into what they will leave behind when they are no longer here. The strength of this message resonates far and above what could be anticipated in advance of hearing the record and will definitely invoke self-reflection amongst it’s listener base. It’s this meaning that gives the album one of its key strengths, and is a real credit to the band for creating such thought provoking lyrics.
Musically, the album is quite strong. Dan Jacobs and Travis Miguel again demonstrate why they are one of the better guitarists duos still kicking it in the genre, with plenty of incredible solos and catchy harmonies throughout the album. Likewise, the percussive side of the band with of Mark McKnight and Brandon Saller excel again and create a great platform for the other instruments to shine.
Vocally Alex Varkatzas does a commendable job for his vocal parts, but fans yearning for a return to the aggressive vocal delivery of Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, or The Crimson era are going to be disappointed, as the delivery here reflects “Long Live” and “Lead Sails, Paper Anchor”. This is not a bad choice by any stretch of the imagination, but one that some fans might find polarising. Brandon Saller continues to demonstrate on In Our Wake, why he is one of, if not the strongest drummer/vocalist in the industry. There is a calming aura to his voice each time that it graces a track that compliments each song perfectly, but it really shines strong on it’s own when given the opportunity in ‘Terrified’. There is a great presence to this song, and it’s one that only Saller’s voice could have done justice to.
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The band has once again used John Feldmann as produced, who helped out with Lead Sails and Paper Anchor meaning that the album sounds more experimental — something that I’m sure will catch fans off guard. Taken individually, each of these songs could be a classic rock radio hit, and the inevitable radio play is something that will surely help the band cast their net of fans out further. When combined together though, it feels like there are sections of the album where the overall flow is disjointed making it suffer an identity crisis as a result. There are songs that sound classic rock, some that sound heavy metal, and even Blind, Deaf and Dumb with its nu-metal undertones. Where previous albums like “Long Live” and “Lead Sails, Paper Anchor” all felt like they had a single musical direction, In Our Wake feels more like a collection of songs held together by its lyrical themes, a true credit as those lyrical themes are so strong.
I enjoyed this album, but acknowledge that it isn’t going to be for everyone. While the band has taken an experimental approach to their sound moving forward, they have still managed to retain their core musical strengths that will allow them to seamlessly travel from the metalcore sound that fans grew up with, to something more mature and reflective of where the band is at right now. This album might not have ticked every single one of the boxes that fans are after, but it does a good job at targeting most of them. If you take nothing else out of listening to this album other than the lyrical themes then the band has hit their mark, and if this is the calibre of their lyrical works moving forward, then the future continues to look bright for Atreyu.