I just don’t know where to begin.

This record is complete garbage. This album is shit. I had to turn the volume down because I was embarrassed that my flatmates would think I enjoy it. There are no redeeming factors whatsoever. I have heard several theories of how these Melodeath pioneers could have fallen so far since their golden years in the mid-90s, and it appears to mainly be a result of a conscious effort towards making their music more accessible, and completely failing in the process.

If you could cut this record down to a 10 or 15-minute EP, it still wouldn’t be great. It wouldn’t even be OK. There’s nothing on this album you haven’t heard before, no choruses that you haven’t already heard on the worst Linkin Park albums, no generic guitar work you haven’t already heard on the worst Black Veil Brides albums, no child choruses you haven’t already heard in the records of washed-up Top 40 artists. In Flames do all of these, and they actually do a worse job than the artists they’re sloppily ripping off.

It’s amazing an album this bad could not only exist, but that it could be released by a band that was once compared to the likes of Iron Maiden. The band’s last 6 records have all been abysmal, no doubt, but this one takes the cake. It makes the others look like Dark Side of the Moon. If you think I am exaggerating any of this, feel free to listen to the record yourselves; it’s actually worse than any of the reviews say it is. This album is 47 minutes of lazy, uninspired, at times unbearable metalcore, and that’s putting it nicely.

It’s shit. Don’t waste your time with it.

Zack Moore