Every Time I Die

From Parts Unknown

BY Bradley Zorgdrager Published Jun 27, 2014

9
From Parts Unknown and its predecessor Ex Lives mirror Every Time I Die's opening one-two album punch. Where their sophomore LP found them slightly mellowing from the spazz-fest (that's a compliment) of Last Night in Town, the second in their more recent pairing ups the metalcore aggression from their impressive 2012 offering. And Hot Damn! is it great.

The band one-up Ex Lives in every regard; that album's chaotic opener can't hold a torch to the firestorm that is "The Great Secret." That secret is evidently a continuation of the spastic sound that initially exemplified them. It's a miracle Every Time I Die are so successful, not because they're not good (they really, really are), but because they're so uncompromising. The occasional bit of singing either works ("Old Light," "El Dorado") or is quickly forgotten amongst a flurry of discordant hardcore fury ("Decayin' With the Boys" and the questionably piano-bookended "Moor").

"If There Is Room to Move, Things Move" features a tribute to producer Kurt Ballou's band Converge, while "All Structures Are Unstable" makes waste of typical song structures in favour of crafty creativity and "Idiot" lobs a musical insult at any naysayers or competitors.

With From Parts Unknown, hopefully this Buffalo band can get the Warped Tour crowd into truly warped music and start cleansing "heavy" music from the awful weight-loss diet it's on, which removed its dirt in favour of sugar, spice and way too much nice.
(Epitaph)

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