All That Remains – A War You Cannot Win
[11/06/12]
[Razor & Tie]
Oh how the mighty have fallen. All That Remains still holds a special place in many of our hearts, as This Darkened Heart and The Fall of Ideals remain among some of the greatest material to ever come out of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal/metalcore scene. Those days are unfortunately long gone, and things don’t look promising. The band stumbled through Overcome and For We Are Many, but the band’s latest pitfall A War You Cannot Win sees the band making yet another grab for radio-friendly rock hits that are formulaic and absolutely boring, falling even further away from the sound that first put them on the map. Gone are the powerfully heavy yet uplifting anthems of ‘Six‘ and ‘The Weak Willed.’ Instead, we’re left with boring uninspired songwriting that we’ve heard done better in previous albums at best and hamfisted paint-by-numbers mediocrity bordering on butt-rock territory at worst. One thing you can still count on All That Remains for is ripping guitar solos, and fortunately lead guitarist Oli Herbert hasn’t stopped contributing harmonic leads and shred, but it’s usually not worth sitting through the songs to get to them. Pass on this, and stick with the pre-Overcome discography and wonder where it all went. - JR
