If I’d heard this record in 2004/5 I’d probably have liked it a lot more than I do five years down the line. The Amity Affliction hail from Australia and are tearing up trees down under. This album was originally released in October in Australia and debuted at #26 on the Australian Album Charts and #1 on the Independent Charts. The band have toured with Enter Shikari, Underoath and He is Legend which is no surprise as the band sound a little like all three. At times this is a straight out screamo fest a la The Devil Wears Prada, where at others it reminds me of ‘Chasing Safety’-era Underoath. ‘BDKIAF’ is arguably the best song on the album, drenched in dirty riffs and sprinkled with keys. But when the band resort to needless screaming and predictable breakdowns it sounds like every record in the genre of the last five years.
JJ Peters (Deez Nuts) and Michael Crafter (I Killed the Prom Queen, Bury Your Dead) make guest appearances but they do little to lift this record away from a borrowed sound which isn’t that far away from a carbon copy of most of the records you’ll already have in your collection. ‘Severed Ties’ is worth a listen if you like old-skool Underoath, but I don’t think it’ll be one you will return to in the longer term.