Attack Attack! – Attack Attack!
As I sat down to listen to Attack Attack’s sophomore self-titled album I prepared myself for some hardcore with a lot of electronic and hip-hop moments. I was totally not prepared for the menagerie of genre switcharoos the boys in Attack Attack were about to throw my way.
Attack Attack’s first album, Someday Came Suddenly, begins with a hip-hop intro that segues (surprisingly well) into a black metal “breakdown” with dark synths over the chugging guitars. For their new album they kept the black metal vibe and dropped the hip-hop. The intro goes into a black metal groove that would be comfortably at home on an Abigail Williams album. However, any similarities between the two fade incredibly quickly as the clean vocals and the electro backgrounds come to the fore.
“Renob, Nevada” is where new vocalist Caleb Shomo’s influence truly begins to influence the record. With vocals eerily similar to Dylan Richter of For the Fallen Dreams, Attack Attack has moved their heavier material in a much more hardcore direction as opposed to their earlier metalcore roots. In fact the parts of the song that were not electronica or sung choruses reminded me so much of For the Fallen Dreams that for a split second I actually thought I had accidentally switched albums.
“I Swear I’ll Change” is probably the most technical track on the album although that isn’t saying much. John Holgado keeps up a fascinating bass line and Johnny Franck’s vocals bring memories of Bert McCracken’s work for The Used. The song follows the pattern set by Renob with clean vocals over keyboard and screamed vocals over chugging, downtuned guitars.
“Shut Your Mouth” is where we come to the first major aberration. This track features electro-artist McSwagger and is entirely devoid of anything resembling rock and roll. The song consists of prepubescent, auto-tuned boys whining about a girl who is much to close. Luckily the song is only 2:45 seconds long.
Following this song “A For Andrew” begins with nothing other than a whistle and is one of the more generic songs on the album and features (unsurprisingly) more generic down-tuned guitar and more auto-tuned vocals. Although towards the end of the song there is a reasonably interesting breakdown that helps bridge the gap between this song and the next. The follow up song “Smokahontas” begins with electronic sounding build up into an absolutely brutal breakdown that made me sit up and take notice. I guarantee that at their shows fans throw down like there is no tomorrow when this song begins. But soon this too is interrupted by high pitched singing that ruins the whole momentum of the song. In fact some of the choruses would not be out of place in a club where young Jay-Z and Brittney Spears fans dance to the sound of auto-tuned, lip singing, starlets.
“AC-130” brings the brutality with not an auto-tuned chorus in sight. When listening to this short 1:48 second song I wanted to get as low as Johnny Franck and Andrew Whiting’s guitars. The group chant of “You’re better off dead” during the sludgy breakdown was the perfect way to restore my morale after the disappointment that is Smokahontas. “AC-130” is easily the best song on the album.
But of course the momentum is once thrown to a screeching halt with the vocal introduction by a T-Pain sound-a-like who loudly proclaims, “We back again baby!” The song continues on to say “Shawty” more times than any song has the right to. The only other noteworthy moment on the album is on the last song they have a DJ come and scratch at some turntables. In hindsight I should have expected something like that from this album but it still caught me off guard.
I respect Attack Attack for what they were trying to accomplish. Trying to stay new and fresh in a music industry mired by a lack of creativity can be difficult. But sadly, this album just tries too hard. The juxtaposition of hardcore and electronica and hip-hop just clashes much too violently. Nowhere on the album are these disparate genres melded. Rather they occupy the same song one after the other. The electronic melodies ruin the momentum of the heavier hardcore parts and the hardcore parts merely preface the electronic choruses. If Attack Attack had made two albums, one electronica and one metal, I believe this would have been a much more successful foray into the music industry. Attack Attack does hardcore and electronica well. My low score is merely a reflection of the fact that these genres do not mix well. If you are already an Attack Attack fan I urge you to purchase this album. If you are a fan of either genre I urge you to listen carefully online before making a final decision.
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28 Comments
June 4th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
These guys aren't very good, plain and simple. Their gimmicky pop-screamo sound was just awful. I listened to some of the previews of their new album after I heard they were going to get rid of the auto-tune crap clean singing. I like the new screaming vocals. Seems to fit better with the music.
But their clean singing is so horrifyingly terrible that any semblance of a good song is obliterated. The whole electronica aspect is something else altogether. They take the most generic aspects of both genres and slap them together. Two pieces of shit rolled up into a ball makes a bigger piece of shit.
Anyways, the review confirmed what I was expecting from them so I think I'll be skipping this one.
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June 4th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
poor Underoath wannabes
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June 4th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Mozil, Underoath never released music as gimmicky as this, though. At least you can argue that Underoath have progressed substantially from their first extended plays to their latest album. Attack Attack! have just been hopping from trend to trend – at least up to this point.
While Attack Attack! make solid music for what they attempt to do, I disagree with the Underoath comparison, haha.
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June 4th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
well every current band like this from this new wannabe screamo bands sounds to me like a poor-mans underoath (looking at their newer records ofc)
and Attack Attack! dosen't make solid music :p I would write more, but well i dont really know what "gimmicky" means xD Im foren <shy>
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June 4th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Yeah, well I can understand what you mean if you are referencing They're Only Chasing Safety. That album pretty much laid the foundation for this type of music. Gimmicky in this instance is basically stating that the band is utilizing popular trends in their music to create more of a following. For example, the synth/electronic parts and the overuse of breakdowns. Combine those two together and you have crack for scene kids.
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June 4th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I cannot wait to pick this up. From your review, it sounds like a total mess.
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June 4th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Its crazy, but I liked this album. I usually would have given a record like this the road test…(hence throwing it out the window of a moving vehicle). But even with all its cheesy-ness, i found parts of the songs really catchy.
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June 4th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I made it to track 3. That's as far as I got. NOT my thing.
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June 4th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
@Lee That was the problem lol. Parts were catchy but just clashed so epically.
@ Jen I dare you to listen to track 4…
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June 5th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Jen, track 3 was my favorite…
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June 5th, 2010 at 2:57 am
Josh AC-130 is by far the best. Because it doesn't trip over its own metaphorical feet.
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June 7th, 2010 at 12:05 am
I've spun this album a few times but the electronica parts make me want to give it Lee's patented Road Test®. I'll admit that I like parts of the album but I can't bring myself to listen to it straight through because the momentum is terrible. I admire the fact that they're trying to meld different genres and I always appreciate when bands bring people together, but it just doesn't work for me.
I liked AC-130 because of the sludginess but I wasn't feeling it as much when it went down into that really slow, down-tuned section with the gang vocals. I liked the momentum of it more in the earlier sections.
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June 7th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Also, what the hell is with the song names? None of them seem to have an relation to the lyrics of the song. "AC-130" makes me think of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Did I already mention that the electronica parts make me want to eat glass shards covered in strychnine? I hate them.
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Austin replied:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Actually…"AC" stands for Austin Carlile, their ex-vocalist. That's one of the only ones that actually correlates.
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June 7th, 2010 at 12:36 am
Attack! Attack!?
Do you know how many times my friends and I mock the whole "Crabcore" thing they do in the Stick Stickly vid?
All else aside, I'm not going to listen to anything with a song named "Turbo Swag".
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June 7th, 2010 at 12:37 am
@Luke & @Josh
Okay, so maybe it was track 4 that made my ears bleed – not track 3.
@Daryn
"Did I already mention that the electronica parts make me want to eat glass shards covered in strychnine?"
Wow, that's hardcore. lol
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June 7th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Yeah, maybe that was overkill. It's just not my thing.
Azriel — "Crabcore" made me laugh. I saw that video a while back and was like "what the hell are they doing?"
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June 7th, 2010 at 1:10 am
I said it was hardcore. I never said I didn't agree with you. lol
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June 7th, 2010 at 1:20 am
I know but it was a bit much, haha.
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June 8th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I can't stand this band. This is a band that is totally riding the fad train, and they even steal riffs and ideas off of other bands, blatantly.
For instance, the mid-song breakdown in "Sexual Man Chocolate" (1:49 to 2:11) almost completely rips off the breakdown/riff from Impending Doom's "More Than Conquerors" (2:45 to 3:11) . It's pretty sad.
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June 9th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
@actrambley21
After re-listening and comparing the two songs I did notice a similarity lol.
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January 28th, 2011 at 11:19 am
I think now that Johnny left and Caleb is picking up clean vocals (preview of Caleb's voice on their myspace) They have the potential to make a good solid metalcore/ish album with better clean vocals that aren't whiny. I really hope they stray away from the electronica/dubstep incorporation. Maybe for a separate album but not together. As always amazing production value from Joey Sturgis, he needs more mention for his amazing abilities and work on many albums reviewed on this site.
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Luke Amos replied:
January 28th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Joey Sturgis is definitely a master of his trade, that's for sure.
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February 14th, 2011 at 10:15 am
everyone here is so negative if you dont like a band dont bother even looking at the reveiw. plain and simple. i myself am heavily influenced by this band. caleb shomo is one of my favorite screamers of all time. he is also an amazing singer and a cool dude. so is everybody else in this band. they are all great musicians who have made a name for themselves. wether you like it or not they're here to stay so you might as well just ignore them.
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Luke Amos replied:
February 14th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
They've definitely established themselves that's for sure. Thanks for reading and commenting man.
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December 23rd, 2011 at 8:23 am
I like the song Smokahontas the best out of the whole album. It’s chorus seems to speak to me in a way that keeps me listening to it. It’s all personal opinion and that gaff, but I also don’t go around bad mouthing beiber when I don’t know the guy… just saying.
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Luke Amos replied:
December 24th, 2011 at 12:56 am
What exactly are you just saying?
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February 24th, 2012 at 1:46 am
Why bash this album? It is very well composed, they truly set their own mark out there with it. And they are an artist, let them express what they feel inside, and give constructive critizism instead of put downs. And hell, they were signed to rise records, you didnt expect breakdowns and dropped tuning? its just a style of music, get over it, just because i drop my guitar tuning to make a chord sound better makes me a generic and terrible musician? Its also proven that you have to have singing talent to use autotune, go try autotuning a wildly fluxuating vocal track, see how good that sounds. its autotuned because they are going for an electronica sound, hence the genre. Dont hate the player, hate the game
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