Atreyu - A Death Grip on Yesterday

Atreyu’s first album Suicide Notes & Butterfly Kisses, was a straightforward hardcore album – raw, loud, full of energy and shouting. Their breakthrough second album The Curse was a bit of a surprise for most people. Finally the photos of band members in Motley Crue t-shirts made sense as the Atreyu sound was mixed with a generous dose of 80s hair metal. Surprisingly, long solos, sweetly sung choruses and hand pumping rhythms melded well with the existing base and provided a refreshing contrast to the straight-up hardcore which was starting to get a bit tired under the weight of so many clone bands. So well in fact that a cover of Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name included as a bonus track on some versions of the album didn’t even make an impact on the flow.

The band’s latest effort falls somewhere between the two. It would be wrong to say it was a return to the early sound, as there is still more variety in rhythms and sounds than there was on the first release. The crisp sound quality of The Curse has been kept too, this time at the hand of producer Josh Abraham. At first listen the solo’s seem to have been ditched too, but after a while you notice them hiding away in tracks such as Ex’s and Oh’s and Shameful. What has been toned down is the cheese factor. Whereas The Curse delighted in mildly tongue in check over-the-top riffs, there are no shouted sing-along’s a la Five Vicodin Chased with a Shot of Clarity, nor the jump out of your seat and clap along intro of Right Side of the Bed.

A Death Grip on Yesterday is a more streamlined, focused attack. The subject matter is familiar as Atreyu still deal largely in broken hearts and regrets (for example see Our Sick Story) but they still do it as well as anyone else and with their ability to write a catchy tune you too will find yourself yelling out “does your body still scream my name?”

The Theft slows things down a bit more, and as with the ending of Untitled Finale (fortunately this is a full song and not just a cleverly titled outro as is becoming too common in this genre) adds an epic element to the album’s sound. But the highlight’s are single Ex’s and Oh’s and My Fork in the Road. Ex’s and Oh’s brings a rock feel to the sound, which is reflected in the lyrics. “Suck me down it’s time to Rock ‘n’ Roll / Let’s hit the bar, let’s lose control” goes the chorus, and this new element to the Atreyu style makes you want to dance. My Fork in the Road on the other hand is symptomatic of the focused and aggressive Atreyu. Sure there’s a harmonised guitar beakdown hidden in there, but it leads straight into one of the albums most direct messages to an ex-lover.

The streamlining continues to the length of the album. With only 9 tracks on A Death Grip on Yesterday, it clocks in at just over half an hour. But considering the quality of these songs compared to the left over track Her Portrait in Black which was recently released on the Underworld: Evolution soundtrack, it seems we’ve been given only the quality songs and spared any filler.

(Originally published on FasterLouder)