Review Summary: in the middle of nowhere.
Flyleaf’s debut album was interesting for a great variety of reasons, and they mostly had to do with the surprisingly good female singer, who also screamed. With her bizarre vocal hiccups, strange stage manner, and abnormally powerful vocals, she single-handedly made Flyleaf a memorable band. The band itself, though, played extremely typical angst-driven mainstream alt/nu-metal with poor instrumentation. A second album, if the band wished to progress, would have to improve their abilities. It would also need to be a little experimental, for their debut album, although good, suffered from songs that were much too similar. In short, they would need to prove they were here to stay, and that they had something else up their sleeves. It looks like they did indeed, but not entirely.
In
Memento Mori, Flyleaf manage to avoid most of the pitfalls that would have cascaded them into a downward spiral. As proven by their first single, ‘Again’, Flyleaf can still produce catchy, rockin’ tunes with excellent melodies – this thought is further cemented due to the verse’s similarity to ‘All Around Me’. Yes, the band hasn’t completely changed, and occasionally tips their hat to the past with jarring, depressive songs such as ‘This Close’ and ‘The Kind’. Mainly though, the album shows Flyleaf revamping their sound, which is at its core, mainstream rock. Occasionally heavy guitars break into their formula, but the album is much more about pleasant melodies than constant riffs and a generally bleak mental state.
The band definitely attempted a transition here, but they never completed it.
Memento Mori is stuck halfway between the depressive alt-metal of the past and the accessible rock that it attempted to be. This results in a schizophrenic listen that showcases a collection of scattered, random ideas that do not culminate in consistency. Perhaps it is the band’s attempt at keeping old fans and gaining new ones, but I’m sure both would have appreciated something smoother considering the four years Flyleaf had to work on the album. When Flyleaf attempt to crawl back into their hole of depressive lyrics and distorted guitars, the songs seem strange and badly put together. When they strip away bluster and focus on simple melodies, the songs are much more enjoyable. Since the album is comprised of both song types to an equal degree,
Memento Mori is both better and worse than expected. Experimentation is good, but some consistency would have been nice.
