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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