Straight Reads The Line
The Author

Release Date: 2008 | Tracklist

I recently realized that there is a certain quality that generally has the power to save almost any hopeful "core" band from drowning in the endless sea of myspace metalcore bands. This quality that I speak of is groove; a nebulous, completely unreachable concept for a lot of "core" bands to even acknowledge and much less competently grasp, but when it is achieved, a lot of great musical opportunities for creativity and ingenuity seem to automatically open up.

It just so happens that groove is more than the fuel that SRTL runs on; it is the engine the band runs with. The album has a very strong hardcore influence and there are many a breakdown, but the goal is not brutality as much as it is rhythm and dynamics. The second strongest influence that is sensed is southern rock. A lot of this comes from the vocal deliverance of Blake Prince, which I must say is pretty incredible. He displays an impressive range and emits a real sense of urgency and raw attitude in his screaming, all with a prominent southern edge. The guitars and drums "swing" and (here it is) "groove" more than they shred or chug.

One thing that needs to be understood is that this album IS heavy and it IS technical; actually, exceptionally technical. Both guitarists and the drummer bring the shred a lot more (or at least more effectively) than you'll find in probably ninety percent of the other bands in the genre. The riffs are dense and choppy, the drumming is tight, and everything is extremely precise but not to a robotic extent. This is a surprisingly organic album considering the level of intensity that is reached. The bassist has very few audible lines or passages, but he does add some nice dynamics with slides and by creating a booming low end in the really heavy sections.

Another vital component to SRTL's sound is melody. This album has two modes; densely technical shred and breakdownage (that's still groovy. I'm trying not to overuse that word), and ambient, melodically uplifting and occasionally epic breaks. The mellow ambient parts are actual mellow ambient parts, meaning none of them sound like a metal band's mediocre attempt at a mellow ambient part. The clean, delay-heavy guitar lines are astonishingly beautiful and tastefully intricate. The big epic sections are big and epic without getting too cheesy or heavy handed. The Author is, in many ways, a very pretty album, though it is mostly comprised of frantic, noisy sections.

This may seem like it reads a bit higher than a 4, but there are still a couple of points. This album does a lot of things right, and gives you (well, me) a lot of things that you want right off the bat. Everything is very to-the-point. None of the songs exceed three minutes in length, which makes this a pretty easy listen commitment-wise. While I greatly appreciated this within the first two weeks of my purchase, I soon realized that this album has a short shelf-life, as with any music that instantly gratifies on so many levels. For all of its technicality and intriguing nuances, The Author is simply not deep enough to have real staying power in your car stereo. Wonderful as it is, it quickly becomes "been there, done that." Still, I would recommend this album to anybody with an ear for technical, melodic, southern hardcore (or any combination of those things), because it makes for a great listen from time to time, and these guys are still infinitely more fresh than ninety five percent of the crap that you'll find on myspace.

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3.6 great

Rank: #0 for 2008