By Formulas don’t belong in music. The world of math and science may be dominated by equations, calculations and formulas, but one of the most enjoyable parts of music is hearing something new and original. Unfortunately, it seems like pop-punk/hardcore/mosh-core/whatever-the-new-genre-is-this-week rockers A Day To Remember didn’t get the memo with their Victory Records debut album,
“For Those Who Have Heart.”
Like every other band in the scene, A Day To Remember follows the formula of heavy screamed vocals during the verses and lighter singing during the choruses. And while both sides of the band sound decent on their own, the combination is completely unoriginal, and the band doesn’t pull it off very well to boot.
While singing, vocalist Jeremy McKinnon seems to draw influence from lighter acts such as Fall Out Boy and labelmates Hawthorne Heights, and while screaming he has a very throaty, metal-like scream ala Throwdown. The two different sides of the band are too contrasting and don’t fit well together. Also, the transitions between McKinnon’s two different vocal styles are choppy throughout the album.
The singing isn’t the only problem. The musicianship in the band is strong, but like the vocals, the two different sides of the band are just far too contrasting. As a listener, it’s difficult to adjust from a Fall Out Boy-inspired sing-along to a double-bass breakdown that sounds like it could be on the new Killswitch Engage album.
One such song is “Monument,” an upbeat song about the singer’s friends not forgetting about him while he tours with his band. The song maintains a steady pace throughout, but at the end, it suddenly turns around and becomes unnecessarily heavy, and this section of the song seems terribly forced.
In a way, it seems like the band has a conflict within itself. The debate is whether to be a much heavier band or to throw in the lighter sound in hopes of selling more records.
The rest of the album is filled with clichés of this genre as well. Slow acoustic song? Check track six, “The Price We Pay.” Emotion-filled lyrics about the one that got away? Check. See nearly every song. Close-up pictures of the band with somber looks on their faces? Check, look no further than the lyric booklet for those.
A few of the tracks on “For Those Who Have Heart” do stand out as being above average. “The Plot to Bomb the Panhandle” and “Here’s to the Past” do the best job of integrating A Day To Remember’s two very distinct styles into a sound that is cohesive. The difference between these songs and the rest is that the screaming is more often used to accent the singing parts, rather than them being completely separate from each other. The breakdowns in the songs are also less abrupt, and the songs flow much more naturally.
With the commercial success of bands such as Hawthorne Heights and My Chemical Romance, it seems that record labels are more and more eager to cash in on this genre of heavy-sometimes-and-soft-at-other sound. A Day To Remember not only does nothing original on “For Those Who Have Heart,” but it isn’t very good at duplicating a genre that is completely played out. Fans of the previously mentioned bands may enjoy this record, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.
