Where Myth Becomes Memory

While I really enjoy the front-to-back visceral tunes, like “Cloaked,” as well as the solely soft power jams, like “Closer,” I can’t get past the way this album attempts to combine the two. The collision often feels like two different songs that have no business conjoining. “To Resist Forgetting” is a prime example. Rolo Tomassi feels the need to constantly interrupt their raw, brutal atmosphere and riffs with these cheesy, uninspired melodic choruses and bridges. And that’s really too bad because songs such as “Mutual Ruin” and “Prescience” would be so much stronger if not for the numbingly simple, boring post-rock parts that feel more like interludes than the main attraction.

This isn’t to say the band can’t properly utilize soft power to intersperse their otherwise thick bombardment of metal and mathcore. “Drip” does it phenomenally. Because rather than strip back Al Pott’s drumming (which is easily the best part of this album, by the way) to highlight Eva Korman’s melodies, as the band tends to do on this album, they let the rhythm section build up the power, slowly but surely, before it finally erupts back into the metal style. This time with items introduced during the bridge included in the mix underneath the sharp, harrowing guitar work and Korman’s killer screaming. The reason “Stumbling” works so well despite not containing any edge is because it still provides a compelling atmosphere that works as a breather, whereas most of the songs here lack any atmosphere when they attempt a faint, withdrawn hook.

It’s really too bad this one mistake is so prevalent on ‘Where Myth Becomes Memory’ because there’s a lot of potential here, and there are still a handful of standout tracks. The album is still good; it just falls into the territory of corny a bit too often for me to get hooked. Hopefully next time around, the band can better balance their sound.