Review Summary: More Like a 'Mild Adjustment'
Accompanied by one of the most hideous album covers in recent memory, slumping metalcore outfit The Word Alive have returned with a record that takes to heart the recent criticisms of the band’s music and makes some slight adjustments. This results in a product that borrows from recent musical trends within heavy music to create a sort of modern hybrid that incorporates electronics, orchestral bits while containing bridges and breakdowns that evoke the days of ‘Deceiver’ and ‘Life Cycles’ just without the crazy technicality. While a marginal improvement over the last two records, ‘Hard Reset’ still finds the band struggling a bit to create original ideas and still not being able to write the most engaging and memorable songs.
The opening track title “The Word Alive is Dead…” suggests that we’re about to be shocked with this massive shift in sound. The slow pacing and simple drum pattern that accents the beginning of the track followed by repetitious monotone vocals kind of excites me, implying that we might get some sort of drawn-out concept where the intro track sets us up for this wonderfully flowing record. I actually quite like this intro; it’s diverse, heavily affected by dark synths during the heavier wall-of-sound moments and complimented with lighter moments as well. We then quietly fade into the first real track (I was hoping for a bit more of that flow that I had mentioned but I quickly decipher that this record is indeed not a concept record but a collection of songs like any of their other record.) “Hard Reset” commences with glitchy, beefy drum kicks that explode into a double time riff-fest with quickfire screamed vocals and the works. It sort of reminds me of “Dear Diary”, the intro track from Bring Me the Horizon’s last record (this will become a common theme where songs remind me of other songs.) It’s certainly got good energy and has a much heavier atmosphere than most of what was featured on the last couple albums with a heightened focus on the guitars and power of the drums. In fact, I would argue that the production and mix of this record is ten-fold better than what we heard on ‘Monomania’ and helps these songs sort of come to life.
One of the defining features of The Word Alive is of course vocalist Telle Smith who I feel might be considered a controversial figure in the scene not only for his friendships and personal life outside of the music, but vocally as well. His screams are not exactly top tier but they get the job done. I would say his screams here are about on-par with the work he did on ‘Dark Matter.’ His singing quality does feel largely improved since those days, however. The thing I feel like Smith struggles with is that even though he has the vocal chops, his ability to create long-lasting, memorable melodies is hit-or-miss at best. The results here are no better than they have been throughout The Word Alive’s existence with songs like “Hard Reset”, “Nocturnal Future” and “Hate Me” having fantastic earworms but then songs like “Slow Burn” and “Static Rain” really struggling to have any sense of replay ability.
Another factor of this record is the number of features throughout which for better or for worse, tend to overshadow the actual bands’ writing with the individual performances tending to be the best part of those tracks. Take for instance “A New Empty” featuring the talents of Normandie vocalist Philip Strand where the featured vocal performances from Strand are so good that other than his melodies, the track really falls flat and the only reason for returning to the song are to hear his vocal bits. Craig Mabbit of Escape the Fate and Noah Sebastian of Bad Omens also have very memorable features on this record and their presence also greatly dictates the sound of those songs. “One of Us” with Sebastian feels like a direct rip of a Bad Omens song that might have been featured on their last record and “Fade Away” with Mabbitt really has some Escape the Fate vibes emanating from it. I guess it’s only natural to feature the vocalists of the bands who have so greatly influenced the songs that you’ve written.
Even through all the criticisms I might have for this record, it’s not a bad record and definitely more enjoyable than anything from the last couple. The energy feels a bit more palpable, the return to a heavier sound suits them rather well and the performances, particularly instrumental, are really solid. The guitar work which was such a highlight of those early TWA records sort of makes a return here with a couple nice guitar solos, some very beefy, technical riffs here and there also complimented by more varied and interesting drum patterns as well. I would recommend the opener and title track along with the single “Nocturnal Future” as they are the highlights here with those qualities that are listed above being most present. I do hope the band continue past this point because this improvement gives me a bit of hope that they still have some gas in the tank and could provide us with a late career banger down the road.
