Retrospective: Killswitch Engage - Alive Or Just Breathing - 2002

Genre: Metalcore
Country: USA
Year: 2002

Tracklist:

1. Numbered Days
2. Self Revolution
3. Fixation On The Darkness
4. My Last Serenade
5. Life To Lifeless
6. Just Barely Breathing
7. To The Sons Of Man
8. Temple From The Within
9. Element Of One
10. Vide Infra
11. Without A Name
12. Rise Inside
13. In The Unblind

Every music style or genre has a complex and slow genesis. It takes more than a few steps to form a new and distinguishable one, steps made through years, songs, albums, and different bands. Because of this, it's impossible to award to just one band or album the creation of an entire style. However, what can be done is to identify some milestones in its generation. For example, the Trash Metal wasn't invented out of the blue by Anthrax or Metallica, but they perfected and made it known to the masses. 

The "Metalcore" isn't the exception to this rule. It wasn't made from one day to another, but its success and most of its core can be attributed to a single band, and to a single album: In 2002, Killswitch Engage released its second and greatest work, titled "Alive Or Just Breathing". 

At that time, more than ten years ago, MTV wasn't full of stupid teen shows like it is today, and you could actually watch... guess what... yea! MUSIC VIDEOS! (it's not too freakin crazy for a so called "Music Television" channel, or is it?). It was there where I discovered this band, in a late-night program, by its first album single and video, "My Last Serenade". I was astonished right away by the never before seen aggressive but melodic style, by mix of the singing, screaming and growling, by the exquisite composition, the catchy melody, and by the outstanding sound, all together in a thrilling and accord music video. It was like the waking of a new part of the brain... It was one of the biggest musical discoveries in my life. 

I put my hands on the album the very next day, and fell in love with it the same day, as I realized that My Last Serenade was only the tip of an enormous iceberg of amazing songs. However, some of those tracks weren't completely originals, but re-recorded songs from the previous work. 

Killswitch Engage made its first full-length release two years before, in the year 2000, self titled "Killswitch Engage". The album didn't produce too much hype at that time, even though the composition was great and unique. The band however made the right decision of salvaging some tracks, re-record them and improved every aspect but the composition. In opportunities like this, it's easy to see the relevance of every element that composes a music piece. The first album had great songs, but they sounded like shit. So, the composition isn't all; the audio and the instrument and interpretation quality are equally indispensable to deliver a good musical product. All the potential within the first album was enclosed in an ugly package, but within Alive Or Just Breathing it was finally brought to life. 

So, Alive Or just Breathing wasn't groundbreaking by itself, but it was good enough to bring Killswitch Engage to the fame, along with the genre. It's thanks to that album -not completely but largely- the fame that today the Metalcore has, and yes.. that the Metalcore bands are spreading everywhere like mushrooms in a rainy forest (which isn't very good). 

Even though no music prodigy is to be found behind the instruments, the creativity in the composition makes every song different, and hard to identify identical choruses or riffs, moving away from those tracks that seem to be actually played by only one minute, while the other four are filled by a "copy-paste" procedure. 

The audio is another strong point. Years had to pass before I had the chance to listen to another album - Satariel's "Hydra", released 2005 - with a sound close to be as powerful and clean. Even for today standards, the sound is top notch, only beat a few times. 

There is much more to say about this band, maybe another time.

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The best of: Scar Symmetry

Genre: Melodic Death Metal/Power Metal

Country: Sweden

"Symmetric In Design" is an excellent work, all the way. It's complex but digestible, aggressive but melodic, technical but simple, making use of new and known elements. It's one of the most outstanding albums in the Melodic Death Metal world. It brims with new and good ideas and, each one of its songs, get stamped in the listener, thanks to very catchy riffs and choruses, which in turn distinguish those songs from each other. The audio is very good, and it's easy to note the great job made in the mixing and mastering, that helps to achieve that air of novelty that the composition itself has already made evident.

Every song feels different from each other and distinguishable, contributing not only with new ideas -within the already original composition- but also with good ones. For example, "Detach From The Outcome" is a lot more aggressive than the other pieces -specially from "Dominion-, with a chaotic style guitar solo, for which it's, up to date, unique.

Unfortunately, release after release, the new and good ideas fade away, along with the good metal fusion, and becoming a sort of power metal band with harsh vocals. The mediocre and bad melodies of this style predominate, the harsh vocals have lost relevance -although they are always present-, and the choruses are a lot "happier".

Their second album titled "Pitch Black Progress", was released no more than one year after the previous one, period that appears to have been too short. Indeed, the second album was, without doubt, a disappointment.

In it, the new and good ideas scarce. Still, it's not a bad work and it's very easy to enjoy. "The Kaleidoscopic God" has a complex song structure, closer to one of an opera than to one of a pop song, while "Deviate From The Form" approaches to a progressive style. Both are great songs and clearly stand out from the other album tracks. The other pieces do not add anything significant. Anyway, the taste that leaves listening to Pitch Black Progress is far from being as good as the one that listening to Symmetric In Design, blissfully, leaves.

The sound got worse with the second album -not too much-, and continued in that path up to the fourth release, where the audio is the worst of all. Similarly, the composition lost its luster. Apparently, this and all the future albums were always doomed, from the start, to be under the large shadow of Symmetric In Design.

The great virtue of the first disc was the deep and almost imperceptible combination of different styles and genres, mixed up with original tunes. In their later albums, some elements were lacking depth in the combination and novelty. Thus, songs with dissonant choruses and riffs appeared, like "Three Dimensional Shadow" and "Noumenon and Phenomenon" -very far from a decent progressive metal- and others so boring and with too many bad ideas such as "Mechanical Soul". Of course, the fading of the death metal side in the style, in favor of the power metal one -it suffices to hear the intro from "The Iconoclast" and its chorus to see that-, is another element to regret.

"Holographic Universe", the third album, was another disappointment . The track of the same name is undoubtedly the great album jewel, but appears to have been hastily completed. Just comparing it with Kaleidoscopic God it's enough to realize that, in similar circumstances, the band delivered a much better product.

"Dark Matter Dimensions", it's a junk, a bigger one than the previous album. In this disk. all that was Scar Symmetry in 2005 is completely lost. Bad composition; repetitive riffs; discordant, unattractive and boring choruses; extensive use of unadmirable and mediocre clean vocals; never remarkable guitar solos; and a too flat sound...In sum, a bad album.

“The Unseen Empire”, the last album, in both the audio and the overall composition, tops its predecessor, but still it does not compare to Symmetric In Design .

Once again, in the history of a band, the first work is the best one, even though, in this case, there was no line-up change. Generally, the good ideas don't abound, and require of some time to mature and flourish. In six years, Scar Symmetry released five albums; a big quantity, but with a very low quality.

1. Chaosweaver (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
2. Reborn (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
3. Obscure Alliance (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
4. Hybrid Cult (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
5. Detach From The Outcome (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
6. The Kaleidoscopic God (Pitch Black Progress - 2006)
7. Deviate From The Form (Pitch Black Progress - 2006)
8. Holographic Universe (Holographic Universe - 2008)
9. The Consciousness Eaters (Dark Matter Dimensions - 2009)
10. Seers Of The Echaton (The Unseen Empire - 2011)



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