Life in Your Way are unashamedly screamo. From the opening squelch of ‘Hope is War’ we are treated to a throwback of a time not to long ago when the emo genre took a crude turn and the louder you could scream and the faster you could kick your bass pedal equalled legions of fans. While the fad has slowly waned and pop punk seems to be on the increase once again, Life in Your Way have attempted to resurrect feelings of days gone by with âIgnite & Rebuildâ. And it almost works. Almost, because while it is assured and competent in execution, the LP only serves to remind why the constant stream of copycat bands have drifted away.
But this really is an album of two sides. On the one hand, there are some thunderously emphatic tracks which benefit from the sublime production of Jim Fogarty and some beautiful sticks work from drummer John Draskill. But on the other, it can be painfully generic at times, featuring all the tell tale signs of a band which has heavily borrowed from there contemporaries. On the whole though, the screams are convincing enough to win over any sceptics that this is poorly thought out trash while stand out efforts such as ‘This, The Midnight Fight’, ‘Stability’ and ‘Evident’ fly the flag proud. But while they may be the finest on display, there is too much filler here to really make âIgnite and Rebuildâ stand firm amongst the legions of other albums attempting similar things.
I haven’t been fortunate enough to hear the bands âacclaimedâ debut âThe Sun Rise and the Sun Setâ but from what I gather, this is a mild step back for the band. It bridges the gap between poppy hardcore and metal fairly well though, and for the casual punter looking for a meaty fix of the aforementioned genres you could do far worse. The good bits are great, the bad bits are terrible, and the rest is just plain old middle ground filler, and for a sophomore release, that isn’t quite good enough.
Jay
Indianola Records
www.lifeinyourway.com