Evergreen Terrace have joined a list of scene veterans with a fresh opportunity among younger music fans, due to signing to taste-making vanguards of trendy heavy music. This group includes Rise Records label-mates Poison the Well and Sumerian Records' the Dillinger Escape Plan and Darkest Hour. However, due to less-developed songwriting, Evergreen Terrace never reached the level of the others, and Dead Horses does nothing to change that. Instead, it falls somewhere between the vibrant metalcore of the Ghost Inside and the pop punk/metalcore collision of A Day to Remember, but lacks the aggression of the former and polish of the latter.
The best parts of the album come when the band evokes the early-2000s metalcore era they grew up in, as on the closing breakdowns of "When You're Born in the Gutter, You End up in the Port" and "Lacuna Inc." In this case the parts are definitely greater than the whole, but parts alone don't make a great album.
(Rise)The best parts of the album come when the band evokes the early-2000s metalcore era they grew up in, as on the closing breakdowns of "When You're Born in the Gutter, You End up in the Port" and "Lacuna Inc." In this case the parts are definitely greater than the whole, but parts alone don't make a great album.