From First To Last - Heroine

Given the age of lead singer Sonny Moore when recording From First to Last’s debut album Dear Diary, My Teen Angst has a Body Count, it would be unfair to describe the sound on Heroine as a more mature effort. Unfair because it might focus attention on age only, and not on the huge musical evolution From First to Last have made as a whole. (And don’t blame ME for bringing up Moore’s age, if it wasn’t so prominently raised in the bio which accompanied this album, I wouldn’t have mentioned it either).

Also according to the bio, the debut album was as much a parody of scene politics as it was inspired by the scene around it. Unfortunately most people didn’t notice. For all Dear Diary’s tongue-in-cheek ribbing of the emo/screamo/post-hardcore genres – through tracks like Featuring Some of Your Favourite Words (“Here’s to playing tug of war with my vocal chords / Maybe I can give this another shot or sing about a broken heart / Or imitate the way it feels if this is happening for real”) – stylistically it didn’t bring anything new along with its complaints. The music was catchy and well written, but it still had a lot in common those who were around them (although perhaps this was needed for their point to get across?).

Heroine corrects this imbalance. Guitarists Travis Richter and Matt Good have driven the band’s sound into a much different territory this time around. The albums first two tracks are the closest to what would have been expected had they continued on the one path. But the first indication of something new is there in the end of Mothersound where a “solo” alternates between notes, feedback and the sound of someone chocking their guitar, as well as the soaring background vocals of Jaqueline Marie. The overall feel of the album is a lot darker and atmospheric, while still keeping the band’s passion alive. Think the change from Deftones’ Around the Fur to White Pony, or Finch’s What it is to Burn to Say Hello to Sunshine (although much more cohesive musically than the latter).

A lot more effort has been put into the production of this album too. The work of producer Ross Robinson almost feels like an extra instrument on the album due to the clarity and space given to everything that is going on. It also means the newly discovered industrial elements fit in seamlessly. The quiet guitars of Waves Goodbye are joined at the end by breakbeats and glitches, while The Levy features programming courtesy of Atticus Ross (12 Rounds, Error and engineer on the most recent Nine Inch Nails album). There are a few notable guest appearances on the album with Ross’ fellow Error member and full time Bad Religion member Brett Gurewitz providing backing vocals on Mothersound (Gurewitz also runs Epitaph records to which FFTL are signed), and the band’s vacant bass slot being filled by Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit, Black Light Burns).

But despite this calibre of guests, their input is used to enhance, rather than as a significant element. The real star of the album is the stronger song writing of From First To Last as a whole. When Moore sings of falling on The Levy, “the distance grows as the ground approaches”, the guitar attack suddenly drops out at the end of the line, even though we’re only a minute into the song. The feeling of a fall and sudden stop this evokes is such that it’s difficult to tell whether the lyrics or the music came first. The highlight track for me though is The Crows are Coming for Us. The slow build up goes from a subdued and eerie verse to a chorus which starts out with Moore’s wail, surround only by light guitars and Derek Bloom creating a crescendo on his cymbals before the full drum and guitar aspects come in. Then we move into an industrial whispered section with high pitched guitar and lots of echo, before a final sing along of:

The crows are coming for us
Let ‘em in, Let ‘em in

Heroine is definitely an evolution for the band. The direct cynicism of Dear Diary has been left behind and replaced with a more poetic, darker and atmospheric sound. Having both these weapons in their arsenal should be a significant benefit to From First to Last.

(Originally published on FasterLouder)

Various Artists - The Best of Taste of Chaos

The Taste of Chaos tour attempts to bring together some of the most bands of the post-emo-hardcore spectrum. Despite only featuring about eight bands on the tour (only five made it to the local version which just recently hit our country), The Best of Taste of Chaos gathers forty bands together on two discs. And it does a surprisingly good job of giving an overview of the current state within these related sub-genres.

Loosely split into the more poppy bands (disc one) and the harder edge (disc two), there is a fair bit of ground covered here. All the bands who made the Australian Taste of Chaos are present, such as The Used, Story of The Year, Killswitch Engage, Funeral for a Friend and Rise Against, but some of the bands from the US tour such as Atreyu and My Chemical Romance are absent. Matchbook Romance provide the most emo moment with the mainly acoustic In Transit, but things are mixed up a bit with tracks like Our Time is Now from Story of The Year who combine the emocore verses with an eighties hard rock aesthetic in the choruses and riffing. They also put on one of the best visual performances at the tour, but seem a little lacking without this on disc.

From First to Last’s Note to Self is a nice little catchy ditty, with some heavy kick thrown in at the end to raise things. But to be honest just about every track on disc one has a chorus with the potential to get stuck in your head. Thursday’s contribution is a touching contemplation about life in a world obsessed with the terrorist threat. It’s clear that they have many of the same influences as the other bands that surround them, but there’s something about the way they combine them in War All The Time which makes it the stand out track on disc one and shows off the musical understanding of the band.

Disc two kicks off with the heavy assault of Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, Every Time I Die and Shadows Fall all in a row. Every Time I Die’s Kill The Music is probably the best example of what’s in store with this disc: more growling, harder drumming and more technical guitar work. And I have to admit at this stage I got more excited about disc two than I had been about disc one. Norma Jean also offer Bayonetwork which is another slice of heavier, less straightforward music and quite impressive. Oddly enough Saosin provide the only live track for a release that’s supposed to celebrate a tour.

With a compilation which relies so much on the genre relation to bring all these bands together, it’s not surprising that some of them start to sound the same (remember, there’s forty bands on this disc). But there are a few surprises lying around still. The Dillinger Escape Plan provide us with Unretrofied, which is almost the inverse of the typical hardcore song. Uncharacteristically catchy for the band and featuring harmonies and synths, it switches around in the middle to give us a dose of distortion, odd chords and screams, then go back to where we started. Opiate for The Masses bring a bit of breakbeat electronic drumming into their mix, while Chariot add a bit of dark metal to their hardcore sound and some grind style vocals, And Then Came Them is possibly one of the darkest songs here.

But the most different is closer Flaco 81 by the Street Drum Corps, a rhythmic percussive piece featuring drums of many types and some really interesting rhythms. It’s a change from the rest, but still retains the same headspace as everything that’s come before it, and thus makes a nice way to end out the set.

(Originally published on FasterLouder)