Your Memorial

Redirect

Written by: PP on 07/01/2013 22:28:37

This time of the year is almost exclusively dedicated to covering releases we should've probably reviewed during the course of the year, but which passed us unnoticed for one reason or another. Ironically, this is the second time Your Memorial have stood in this situation, despite impressing us on their sophomore album "Atonement" two years ago, but that is the price you sometimes pay for being on a smaller label and all. Thankfully, not too much as changed for their next album "Redirect", where Your Memorial continue to play to their strengths while drawing extensive parallels to the pioneering atmospheric metalcore brilliance that was Misery Signals half a decade ago.

"Atonement" was a good album because of its strong reliance on progressive musicianship and ambient melodies driven by polyrhythms, which together created a fluid and dynamic soundscape with lingering melodies adding a sense of depth to the whole shebang. "Redirect" sees no reason to switch away from a working formula, and so the thick, yet borderline melodic screams are able to do wonders yet again over the ambiently charged soundscape. "Change The World" is probably the best example, which suggests vocalist Blake Earring is almost ready to battle on par with the best vocalists in the genre strictly from a technical point of view. I say almost, because while his delivery is clear and easily decipherable, he's still too easily mistakable for others doing equally thick, echoing roars over a similar soundscape.

One thing that has changed since "Redirect" is the amount of clean vocals. These now appear frequently, but are of the Killswitch Engage variety in that they never come close to sounding whiny or emo in the same way as many post-hardcore (and metalcore) clean vocalists do. Here, they add a sense of tranquil majesty to the soundscape, as well as variety to the screams especially when they are juxtaposed on top of each other, which is frequently the case.

"Redirect" isn't a surprising album nor is it a genre-defining one. It doesn't re-invent the wheel, on the contrary, plays the atmospheric / ambient metalcore style by the books. That means it's effective, and given the technically solid foundation the whole record is built on, this should be on the list of albums to check out from 2012 for any Misery Signals fan.

Download: Change The World, Legacy, Shipwreck, Transform
For the fans of: Misery Signals, Gwen Stacy, Killswitch Engage
Listen: Facebook

Release date 17.07.2012
Facedown Records

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