Review Summary: Haven't written a review in quite a bit but to follow suit as I previously have, sum deathcorez.
Glass Casket's
We Are Gathered Here Today... was possibly the most promising album in the history of deathcore. The band had created an interesting sound mixing black metal influenced tremolo picked riffs with heavier melodic death metal with some technical deathcore (think Animosity or The Red Chord, or both at once somehow) and oh so brutal now deathcore signature breakdowns. Glass Casket on the other hand was part of a wave of something new, and quite on the top of that wave in skill, obviously as some members are now unfortunately featured in Between The Buried And Me.
Regardless, Glass Casket's debut release is fricking brutal and yet somehow extremely emotionally compelling, which is what really sets it apart from any other deathcore. Not only is the music pleasingly technical and intense, it appeals to the listener in a human manner rather than the sterile, robotic feel of much of this music out today. Throughout the album you can notice heavy influence of Paul Waggoner and Tommy Rodgers projects Prayer For Cleansing and Between The Buried And Me, but in a more death metal manner... With brooding tremolo riffs to dissonant tech metalcore breakdowns,
We Are Gathered Here Today... is an intense release that any fan of deathcore should get their hands on. Vocalist Adam Cody stands out among a crowd of vocalists trying to emulate Despised Icon and The Black Dahlia Murder, with a desperate, tired (not in a strained way) mid ranged rasp, and deep outward gutturals. Spoken segments are littered throughout the album in a very Dallas Taylor-era Underoath-ish manner, which in my opinion really adds to the album. Everything they do is pretty derivative, yet they put it all together in a real sense that actually kind of has a human feel.
Downsides of the album though... well really the lack of feeling on Blake Richardson's part... his drumming is fine, but it's a bit too mechanical at certain points (:58 in Pencil Lead Syringe, or the, "I'm sorry," breakdown really comes to mind. Cody's lyrical content also detracts from this album at points too... the delivery is very passionate and honest sounding which saves it, but his lyrical content is just very juvenile to be completely honest. One part of me loves the cheese of, "she's smiling at me now, you should have loved me," appeals to me in the sense of nostalgia, but overall it's pretty cheesy to anybody that didn't thrive on such spoken segments in their metalcore in high school. So well... this is more of a death metal record for metalcore fans than metal purists, but it's pretty damn tasty.
Glass Casket is still on metal-archives.
