Review Summary: Rival Factions is a step down from the previous release, but the band still manages to create a good hard rock record while noticeably changing their sound.
Andrew Schwab – Vocals
Randy Torres – Guitar, backing vocals, piano
Bass – Stephen Dail
Drums – Jason Gerkins
For most bands, changing your sound can be quite a tricky thing. Everything is about striking a balance between the new influences and what made your music good in the first place. When your new style is more accessible than before, many fans will likely scream “sellout!” and turn away in disgust.
For Project 86, this is compounded by the fact that their previous release,
…And The Rest Will Follow, was their best album to date (in my opinion of course). While the band still did almost nothing new in terms of hard rock, the album was a fairly diverse effort. It not only showed their handle on the post-hardcore hard rock ferocity and good songwriting, but also a grasp on melody that ultimately fell flat on
Truthless Heroes.
Opener
Evil (A Chorus of Resistance) is really rather deceiving. Starting and based around a power chord progression, it’s noticeably softer and more melodic than any of the band’s previous opening songs – especially the bridge. Since it was the first song leaked from this album, I’m betting many fans – like myself – were thinking this album would be a bit softer.
Ye of little faith! One listen to
Put Your Lips to the TV puts this fear to rest. It starts off like "The Hand, The Furnace, The Straight Face" (from the previous disc), with a piano intro that brings to mind music from the likes Elton John or Ben Folds. But after 5 seconds, in bursts the band with full fury. The verse finds vocalist Schwab screaming much higher than before, and although you can almost feel him ripping his throat apart it’s an unexpectedly good surprise.
The Forces of Radio Have Dropped a Viper Into the Rhythm Section is possibly the best title for describing itself, as it starts with quick bursts from the drums. Everything then goes into the completely off-kilter, start-stop verse, where sporadic electronic interludes go in between the bursting vocals and instrumentation. The chorus isn’t as strong as some of the other ones, however the song still manages to be one of the better ones here.
The rest of the album is fairly similar, with the new electronic influence working quite well in the overall mix. Most of the time it works in the background, but the synthesizer in
Illuminate works perfectly as a lead instrument backed by the guitar, drums and bass. Another significant change is that vocalist Andrew Schwab’s yelling vocals sound noticeably different. It’s a bit raspier, higher and ultimately a letdown from previous albums, however. Luckily, that doesn’t detract much from the overall quality much.
But my biggest beef with this band’s new album is that
backing vocalist Randy Torres only sings once on the entire thing. If you’ve heard any of their previous albums, you should know that some of the best moments came from Randy harmonizing behind Schwab’s raw shouts, all backed with the band going full force. Since I felt that Schwab performed significantly worse here, having Randy’s excellent voice would have really helped. But he only sings once, in
The Sanctuary Hum, and the first five times I listened to this I never noticed it.
It’s come time for another band to change their sound. The new electronic influences work quite well with the band’s hard rock sound, but sadly Schwab’s vocals and the remarkably short running time result in a noticeably worse disc compared to their stronger albums. Buy
The Kane Mutiny EP along with album if you’re going to get it, as the three new songs would help this album overall.
Pros:
New electronic stuff works well
Their sound is still quite the same
Cons:
Somewhat softer
Way too short (Songs average about 3 mins, album is 35 mins)
Vocals aren’t quite as good
Recommended tracks:
Evil (A Chorus of Resistance)
Put Your Lips to the TV
The Forces of Radio Have Dropped a Viper Into the Rhythm Section
Illuminate
The Sanctuary Hum
