Man this is definitely better than anything they ever did with Howard, so happy that Jesse is back!

Never cared much for KsE beyond Alive and some of End of Heartache, but I've been hearing a bunch of good things about this. Might have to pick me up a copy.

Written by [user id=101272] on 01.04.2013 at 23:02

Never cared much for KsE beyond Alive and some of End of Heartache, but I've been hearing a bunch of good things about this. Might have to pick me up a copy.

If you liked the Jesse-era then you will love this album, it's like that horrible Howard-era never happened. I am a huge fan of the Alive Or Just Breathing album and was sorely disappointed with each consecutive album they released with Howard but I am loving this album!

I thought even with Jesse returning, the band might have lost its touch permanently.. but given your comments, I might check this out now.

Written by Moose on 02.04.2013 at 03:34

I thought even with Jesse returning, the band might have lost its touch permanently.. but given your comments, I might check this out now.

I was also immensely worried about this when his return was first announced. But I started getting excited when they released "In Due Time" which was pretty good. Then they released "The New Awakening" and I got a little more excited. And I've listened to the album several times now and I absolutely love it.

Wooow good return! very nice sound and a great voice!!! heavy, as I like KSE!

I want to be as enthusiastic about this as Zep, but for me the songwriting is too upbeat and chirpy, the guitars lack punch and balls (listen to the opening of 'A Tribute To The Fallen': paper thin sounding geetarz) and Jesse's vocals are too polished and have a bit of a post-processing vibe about the cleans. Just feels like KSE-lite to me. Not an unenjoyable listen though but not the hailing back to Alive... I'd hoped for. Will come back for a rating.

Loving these riffs.

Written by [user id=4365] on 02.04.2013 at 13:32

I want to be as enthusiastic about this as Zep, but for me the songwriting is too upbeat and chirpy, the guitars lack punch and balls (listen to the opening of 'A Tribute To The Fallen': paper thin sounding geetarz) and Jesse's vocals are too polished and have a bit of a post-processing vibe about the cleans. Just feels like KSE-lite to me. Not an unenjoyable listen though but not the hailing back to Alive... I'd hoped for. Will come back for a rating.

I had a feeling this would be your opinion, and nothing against you for it. But in the band's defense, they have been an A-list metal band for a decade, you couldn't possibly expect them to backtrack/devolve/return/whatever to a more "archaic" production method/style than they've been acustomed to for the last decade.

Granted it's not AOJB but it is still superior to ALL of the Howard albums Imo. I also love that they have brought back some of the At The Gates worship that was rather prevalent in their first round of Jesse material that was lacking in the Howard albums making them sound like generic metalcore instead of good metalcore with more emphasis on good metal than generic core.

Written by psykometal on 02.04.2013 at 19:30

I had a feeling this would be your opinion, and nothing against you for it. But in the band's defense, they have been an A-list metal band for a decade, you couldn't possibly expect them to backtrack/devolve/return/whatever to a more "archaic" production method/style than they've been acustomed to for the last decade.

Granted it's not AOJB but it is still superior to ALL of the Howard albums Imo. I also love that they have brought back some of the At The Gates worship that was rather prevalent in their first round of Jesse material that was lacking in the Howard albums making them sound like generic metalcore instead of good metalcore with more emphasis on good metal than generic core.

It's entirely the band's fault if they want to water down their sound with expensive effects and audience friendly sound and production. Fame and wealth is no excuse for making average music if you ask me. Jesse's inclusion on this, in the end, turned out to be little more than a novelty as I don't think the overall product is anything worth writing home about.

Written by [user id=4365] on 02.04.2013 at 20:31

It's entirely the band's fault if they want to water down their sound with expensive effects and audience friendly sound and production. Fame and wealth is no excuse for making average music if you ask me. Jesse's inclusion on this, in the end, turned out to be little more than a novelty as I don't think the overall product is anything worth writing home about.

Oh I'm not saying it isn't the band's fault that they chose to use modern technology to polish their music nor am I trying to make excuses for the band's choice, I'm just saying you shouldn't have expected a decade long A-list metal band to not heavily polish their album. And the album doesn't sound watered down to me at all, it's got a fair amount more "bite and beef" to it than the Howard albums Imo. And the songwriting sounds far better and more diverse than anything I ever heard from their Howard albums.

I think you just might be too accustomed to the super thick/dense atmospheres and production of bands like Portal, Aevangelist and Abyssal on top of your well-known distaste for super clean modern production.

Written by psykometal on 02.04.2013 at 21:07

Oh I'm not saying it isn't the band's fault that they chose to use modern technology to polish their music nor am I trying to make excuses for the band's choice, I'm just saying you shouldn't have expected a decade long A-list metal band to not heavily polish their album. And the album doesn't sound watered down to me at all, it's got a fair amount more "bite and beef" to it than the Howard albums Imo. And the songwriting sounds far better and more diverse than anything I ever heard from their Howard albums.

I think you just might be too accustomed to the super thick/dense atmospheres and production of bands like Portal, Aevangelist and Abyssal on top of your well-known distaste for super clean modern production.

You forget I listen to a variety of pop/rock/pristine-produced electronic stuff as well, where clinical production works perfectly I have a serious beef with a lot of overproduced metal though where it stifles the effect of the music at hand. There's a difference between good production and overproduction and I do indeed believe that hundreds of poor albums could be dramatically improved with less surgery-room production. I don't think that has anything specifically to do with my liking of more organic sounding metal as I often critique albums for being underproduced (see my comments on The Ruins of Beverast's 'Foulest Semen...' or Akercocke's 'Antichrist' records for starters). What expectations I may have had are irrelevant really as I would consider this just as flimsy sounding had I not had any preconceptions about it. If you ask me I'd say you're bewitched by the fact Jesse is on this album

Written by [user id=4365] on 02.04.2013 at 21:19

If you ask me I'd say you're bewitched by the fact Jesse is on this album

I may be slightly biased on the matter, yes...

I guess I'm a bit torn on this as far as a rating. I love some of the riffs so much that I'd rate them 9/10s in isolation. The vocals to me are mostly forgivable. The cleans seem fitting and moving, if not slightly over produced. I think Jesse's harsh vocals are barely too punk-ish, sounding emotionally underdeveloped and whiny. While I'm getting used to his "personality" and vocals I still keep imagining how good this would sound with less pretentious vocals. Killswitch is one of the few bands that has grabbed my attention that is extremely popular and has major mainstream appeal. They certainly are right on the edge of what I love and what I might find repulsing in music. Though I never wanted to get into the Howard versus Jesse argument, to be honest I think Howard could have made this album an all time classic, grade A melodic death album, making it Jesse alone that keeps this album in the "Metalcore" zone for me this time. I expect my rating to change as I keep listening since I just got the album yesterday.

Written by Wes on 03.04.2013 at 04:44

I guess I'm a bit torn on this as far as a rating. I love some of the riffs so much that I'd rate them 9/10s in isolation. The vocals to me are mostly forgivable. The cleans seem fitting and moving, if not slightly over produced. I think Jesse's harsh vocals are barely too punk-ish, sounding emotionally underdeveloped and whiny. While I'm getting used to his "personality" and vocals I still keep imagining how good this would sound with less pretentious vocals. Killswitch is one of the few bands that has grabbed my attention that is extremely popular and has major mainstream appeal. They certainly are right on the edge of what I love and what I might find repulsing in music. Though I never wanted to get into the Howard versus Jesse argument, to be honest I think Howard could have made this album an all time classic, grade A melodic death album, making it Jesse alone that keeps this album in the "Metalcore" zone for me this time. I expect my rating to change as I keep listening since I just got the album yesterday.

Howard's screams were far more core than Jesse's ever were. The music is what keeps this album "grounded" in metalcore (granted the music is right on that cusp between metalcore and melodeath) not the vocals since Jesse's screams typically come straight out of the fictional textbook, How To Scream Like: Tomas Lindberg, so if either of those vocalists were to make this a melodeath album it would be Jesse, not Howard. Imo Howard's vocals were far more whiny and core-ish than Jesse's ever were.

As for Howard making this a classic, no, by Howard's own admittance he ran out of gas in his tank for this music long time ago so this album would be just as horrid as their last album with Howard. Their last album was by far the worst because of Howard's lack of dedication and interest and it's a fair bet that that affected all of the rest of the band to the point that they wrote and recorded the worst album of their career, even the long-time die hard Howard fans all cried when that turd was released. The music on this album is as awesome as it is because Howard was gone and they had renewed vigor from writing with Jesse again instead of poor ole bummed out Howard.

Written by psykometal on 03.04.2013 at 05:18

Written by Wes on 03.04.2013 at 04:44

I guess I'm a bit torn on this as far as a rating. I love some of the riffs so much that I'd rate them 9/10s in isolation. The vocals to me are mostly forgivable. The cleans seem fitting and moving, if not slightly over produced. I think Jesse's harsh vocals are barely too punk-ish, sounding emotionally underdeveloped and whiny. While I'm getting used to his "personality" and vocals I still keep imagining how good this would sound with less pretentious vocals. Killswitch is one of the few bands that has grabbed my attention that is extremely popular and has major mainstream appeal. They certainly are right on the edge of what I love and what I might find repulsing in music. Though I never wanted to get into the Howard versus Jesse argument, to be honest I think Howard could have made this album an all time classic, grade A melodic death album, making it Jesse alone that keeps this album in the "Metalcore" zone for me this time. I expect my rating to change as I keep listening since I just got the album yesterday.

Howard's screams were far more core than Jesse's ever were. The music is what keeps this album "grounded" in metalcore (granted the music is right on that cusp between metalcore and melodeath) not the vocals since Jesse's screams typically come straight out of the fictional textbook, How To Scream Like: Tomas Lindberg, so if either of those vocalists were to make this a melodeath album it would be Jesse, not Howard. Imo Howard's vocals were far more whiny and core-ish than Jesse's ever were.

As for Howard making this a classic, no, by Howard's own admittance he ran out of gas in his tank for this music long time ago so this album would be just as horrid as their last album with Howard. Their last album was by far the worst because of Howard's lack of dedication and interest and it's a fair bet that that affected all of the rest of the band to the point that they wrote and recorded the worst album of their career, even the long-time die hard Howard fans all cried when that turd was released. The music on this album is as awesome as it is because Howard was gone and they had renewed vigor from writing with Jesse again instead of poor ole bummed out Howard.

You may be right, since I've written just how I feel about the album and it has no basis in facts whatsoever. Actually the last album is my favorite one, namely 2 tracks that I keep coming back for. To me, Lindberg's vocals are the polar opposite from Jesse's, not even comparable in character and emotion. But again, this is just how I feel. I like the album for sure, and am hoping I can get more accustomed to Jesse's vocals, very very glad it's here and rocking out now as I write this.

Written by Wes on 03.04.2013 at 05:45

You may be right, since I've written just how I feel about the album and it has no basis in facts whatsoever. Actually the last album is my favorite one, namely 2 tracks that I keep coming back for. To me, Lindberg's vocals are the polar opposite from Jesse's, not even comparable in character and emotion. But again, this is just how I feel. I like the album for sure, and am hoping I can get more accustomed to Jesse's vocals, very very glad it's here and rocking out now as I write this.

Idk, when I listen to Jesse scream, no matter what band he's in, I here an obvious Tomas Lindberg influence from Slaughter of the Soul. And early KsE before Jesse left was all very influenced by At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul.

Not to be a Marcel, but.

Mediocre at best.

I'm a big metalcore fan, but this is just the definition of meh. Boring, recycled riffs. Plastic production.

Alive or Just Breathing is one of my favorite metalcore albums of all time. I wasn't expecting this to be nearly as good, but even still I'm pretty disappointed. There's just nothing worth listening to...just seems incredibly grounded, uncreative and generic as this kind of music gets. The return of Jesse's vocals is just about the only positive aspect, but even those seem too manufactured and cleaned up to really make any difference. Didn't listen to their last release, but I really don't see how this is any better than a lot of the Jones era material.

Really starting to get into this album now. It took a few listens for me and then it all starts to click. The feeling of sameness about the songs goes away. I think that sameness has to do with similar song length and structures for a lot of them, but I think that's a KsE feature of all their albums. I thought the over production and gloss was off-putting at first but I like it now. I feel this lacks the raw energy and aggression of Alive or Just Breathing but that's only a minor criticism. I like the positive messages in a lot of their lyrics - sometimes I wonder if they are a religious band but there are no direct references to this. Love the songs "In Due Time", "The Turning Point" especially. I just wonder whether the songs are so catchy that they'll have a short shelf life and quickly get stale from getting stuck in my head at all hours of the day and night. I do wish they'd write a longer, perhaps more epic song but I'm happy with what they do. Overall I give this a rating of 8.

Written by Ace Frawley on 09.04.2013 at 11:16

sometimes I wonder if they are a religious band but there are no direct references to this.

I'm inclined to believe they are but maybe they just didn't want to be pigeon-holed as a "preachy Christian band" so they make vague references instead.

Awesome new album! Seriously I didn't expect it!

I think "The Turning Point" is one of my favourite KsE songs. Damn it's good.

Written by Ace Frawley on 12.04.2013 at 12:58

I think "The Turning Point" is one of my favourite KsE songs. Damn it's good.

Turning Point is a fantastic song indeed, def one of my faves on that album (if not my fave).

I was close to give up in the middle of the album, but from The Turning Point until the end, the album sounds better. Not too bad, not so good. I'll keep an eye on KsE for the future.

Honnestly, "Emo" parts pissed me off. Maybe it's all the style I don't like. Anyway, they did a good job with this new release.

Hm.. the emo chorus kills the songs.

*sigh

People still don't know what emo is...

After this great release, Killswitch Engage once again delivering new album. Probably fall at the end of 2015. Currently they're in demo stage.

Hooray!

Is it just me or this sounds as good as Alive or just breathing?

There are several good songs on this album with The Turning Point and No End In Sight being standouts. It was quite a pleasant surprise, I remember.