While I’m undoubtedly running the risk of hundreds of street team members here – this album is absolutely terrible. Emmure aren’t a band I’ve heard before and on the evidence of these ten tracks this doesn’t surprise me very much. “Goodbye to the gallows” is the band’s debut album, after releasing several demos and an EP, and this is somehow their combined effort after four years as a band and countless train journeys commuting to get the band going. It’s intense hardcore with ferocious screaming and metal breakdown after metal breakdown and to be totally honest there isn’t really much that stands out for me.
While Emmure are able to rip through their tracks with an unruly air, they never seem to actually get anywhere and after you’ve heard one poorly recorded scream you’ve practically heard the whole album. I love bands that can effectively combine melodic rock with intense moments, but it just seems that Emmure have tried too hard to come across as some uncontrollable beast with an impressive bark, but one which is ultimately worse than it’s bite. “When keeping it real goes wrong” is the perfect example of Emmure‘s musical failings, the opening five seconds are angular and promising and then the horrendous roar of Frankie’s vocals arrive and the band spend the next two minutes crashing around and occasionally changing their pace to poor effect.
It’s also worth mentioning that “Travis Bickle” is a dull interlude which fails to add any dramatic effect or tension to the record, and opening track “A ticket for the paralyzer” is little more than thirty experimental seconds which again seems to insert nothing of interest to the record. It’s therefore a fairly short album and if you’ve followed the band since their early demos you’d no doubt be left feeling a little disappointed with their offerings.
If I had to find one stand out track, and this is pushing the limits very far, it comes in the form of “Rusted Over Wet Dreams” as the slow introduction with two sentences of spoken word are a nice break from the intensity and I can’t help but thinking that this album could be fairly promising if they’d followed that approach throughout. Unfortunately they haven’t and I can’t help but laughing at the second track title, “10 signs you should leave”, as this album has ten very clear reasons why I believe people should leave it well alone.
Tom