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All That Remains

For We Are Many

Written by: AP on 06/01/2011 00:00:10

Those who felt betrayed by the radio friendly "Overcome" are in luck: the once torchbearing ensemble of metalcore visionaries united under the name All That Remains have not forgotten their roots. "For We Are Many", the band's fifth album, sees vocalist Phil Labonte lead his crew of instrumental prodigies to their crushing origins and back, joining the best of both worlds into a sound not too distant from Killswitch Engage in their current phase. It is no secret that Phil Labonte once auditioned to replace Jesse Leach in said outfit after brief stint in Shadows Fall, which has lead many a critic to accuse him of frustrated aping as the job was given to Howard Jones instead. But with at least one critically acclaimed masterpiece to account for it, All That Remains have succeeded as much in forging their own fortune, nevermind the inevitable comparisons to their slightly more popular regional buddies.

That All That Remains lags behind when it comes to worldwide rockstardom owes not to sounding too much like Killswitch Engage, however, but to the fact that Labonte and co. have always preferred to remain too extreme for the casual listener. Sure, "For We Are Many" has its share of sugary moments in the likes of "The Last Time", "From the Outside" and "Hold On", but it herds off the pussies with the thrash inspired instrumentation of "Some of the People, All of the Time", "Aggressive Opposition" and "Dead Wrong", which all provide ample opportunity for Labonte to unleash the full might of his voice. The guttural growl so heavily applied on "Behind Silence & Solitude" makes a ferocious return, and his distinctive, sharp screams still cut through walls of double pedal like shards of glass.

But with all this in mind, it is his esteemed clean vocals rather than his Melissa Cross trained shrieking that take the pedestal here. Continuing from "Overcome", these are heavily layered in order to artificially create rasp and strain for the choral memorabilia dished out in every song. And if it weren't for the daunting mastery of guitarists Oli Herbert and Mike Martin coming to the rescue, "For We Are Many" would falter in being too safe and predictable. These thinly veiled, recurring attempts at cracking the commercial radio rock market aren't necessarily poorly written, so much as they are overused and entirely commonplace.

As such, while "For We Are Many" sees the band tone down their populism, they continue to straddle the line between doing it to get something off their chest and doing it for a paycheck. Sadly, right down to the clichéd acoustic ballad that concludes the album, it has become increasingly difficult to tell which side All That Remains firmly stand on. On the other hand all the awful neon colors and soulless mass production that plague the metalcore genre in mind, "For We Are Many" does remind us with a forerunner's credibility that all hope is not lost.

Download: For We Are Many, Some of the People, All of the Time, Aggressive Opposition
For the fans of: As I Lay Dying, Bullet For My Valentine, Caliban, Killswitch Engage
Listen: Myspace

Release date 12.10.2010
Prosthetic Records