Review Summary: Yet another band that attempts to amalgamate metalcore with good ol' fashion southern rock...is anybody ever going to get this right?
Pat The Human is a seven piece metalcore band hailing from Dallas, Texas, so it should be no surprise that they would be yet another band to jump on the metalcore/southern rock bandwagon. In actuality, the band should really just be a six piece, but we will get to that little technicality in a moment. The current line up of Pat The Human, (commonly referred to as PTH) is as follows... (last names are not listed for the simple reason that none are listed anywhere I have looked)
Corey - Vocals
Pico - Vocals
Colton - Guitar
Jorge - Guitar
Colin - Bass
Ramone - Drums
Matt - Lights?
That's right, they have a member who plays lights. This may sound ridiculous, except for the fact that their live show consists of what can only be described as an epic lighting display, which is actually operated by a keyboard apparatus, hence actually "playing" lights. However, on the actual album, Matt contributes absolutely nothing. Musically, the band itself is a mixed bag.
The vocals consist of the general throaty roars and screams commonly found in the genre. The vocalist that does the lower roars puts on a surprisingly good performance, but the higher vocalist is another matter entirely. The higher screams, if you can call them that, are terribly grating and irritating. The only way I can think of to describe it would be to imagine Brian Fair (Shadows Fall) having a sever asthma attack. Needless to say, it isn't pleasant. The guitarists, as you may have guessed already, throw out a slew of metalcore riffs, breakdowns, and southern rock style guitar parts, albeit a bit heavier than usual. Most metal albums nowadays suffer from a seemingly absent bass player, but this album suffers from quite the opposite. The bass is so loud at times it gets irritating, and even though their bassist isn't exactly bad, it makes the sound incredibly fuzzy due to the low production value. The drummer is decent, though extremely underwhelming. There are a few decent drum fills in the album but nothing more than that. There are a few moments within the songs that include some synths, which can be irritating for the most part, but sometimes works fairly well. Clean vocals are also present, but in very small doses.
The intro song, Welcome To Brute Force, seems to be a sound clip from a monster/sci fi movie, which spans a little over a minute. It doesn't really serve a purpose at all, but most intro tracks of this nature don't. Cornbread N Cropcircles, is a decent enough song for the first half minute or so. The song opens with a decent and slightly thrashy guitar riff and then breaks into an almost deathcore-ish verse, before the southern rock riffery takes hold. The insanely loud bass only serves to could up the sound during the breakdowns, and it also seems that the bass is somewhat off tempo at times, which is simply unacceptable on an album. If you have the opportunity to try as much as you want to get a part right on an album, why not do that? The song gets pretty much ruined when the horrendous higher screams come into play, not to mention the song turns into one long southern rock breakdown after that.
This is pretty much the formula for the rest of the cd. Songs start off with a pseudo heavy riff or breakdown, and the screaming ensues, followed by a torrent of uninspired and bland guitar work, accompanied by a flurry of average drumming. Now that's not to say the album isn't without its decent moments. There are some decent and well used gang shouts in the second song Bts, as well as some surprisingly decent clean vocals. If the clean vocals do happen to be coming from the higher screamer, one can only hope he sticks to singing the next time around. Halfway through the song a rather cheesy audio sample comes in with the line
"don't make me destroy you" and then the breakdown ensues, causing the song to take a rapid downhill turn, which is only saved by the previously mentioned decent clean vocals. Even though the vocals are decent enough the lyrics are bland and uninspired, as the singer rambles on about love and dancing under star filled skys. The song then goes through yet another breakdown.
The breakdowns in the album are ridiculously frequent, rearing their ugly heads at least 4 times in every song, which is only made worse by the fact that they are completely uninspired and boring. The album's only real saving grace is The Workout Song. The song is exactly what it states, its a workout routine that PTH apparently made up and wrote a song about. The song is 90% breakdown, but the lyrics and ridiculous shouts make it surprisingly enjoyable. I mean seriously, who wouldn't enjoy shouting
"HGH, AND PROTEIN SHAKES" over what is perhaps the album's only decent breakdown. Enjoyable as it may be, the novelty will quickly wear off after repeated listens.
However enjoyable The Workout Song may be, it simply can't justify buying the entire album. The rest of the album is so underwhelming and boring, its hard to even pay attention to it. At times I found myself more interested in picking at my toenails than listening to the music. My suggestion to you as a listener, would be to simply download The Workout Song, and then wait to see if their next album is better.
Pros
-Decent clean vocals on some songs
-Decent growling vocals
Cons
-Instrumental aspects are completely bland and uninspiring
-This album actually contains places where the instruments get off track which is completely unacceptable in my opinion
-High vocals are dreadful
-The bass is so loud it ends up being detrimental to the overall sound
