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For Today

Wake

Written by: MAK on 14/10/2015 14:56:14

If there is one term to describe For Today at this stage in their career, "comfort zone" would be that term. Having released their sixth album in just seven years, the Iowa quintet continue to churn out earth shattering metalcore bruisers without appearing to have the desire to branch out from a genre that is starting to get rather stagnant. To be quite frank, If you have listened to For Today then you have heard the songs from "Wake" in some format before – there are no surprises here, what you see is what you get with the Christian metalcore outfit.

As anyone familiar with For Today might expect, "Wake" takes a no holds barred approach from the off. "No Truth, No Sacrifice" is the first track on the album and brutally attacks your ears with vocalist Mattie Montgomery's dominantly deep roars that are backed by crushing riffs and unrelenting energy. The intensity is high from the start with little room for any kind of melody. "Broken Lens" follows that up with a similar onslaught, though the Iowa bruisers push for something slightly more anthemic here. Guitarist Ryan Leitru provides clean vocals in a chorus which repeats the words "Tear me open from the inside out" several times - enough to get them buried in your head the first time you hear the song.

For Today continue to mix the standard metalcore elements that everyone has come to anticipate, from the now traditional use of breakdowns – which are thankfully not overused, to the harmonised melodies and intense drumming. All of these are fronted mostly by monstrously deep roars and occasionally thrown in cleans, as standard as metalcore gets these days. Metalcore clichés come to mind a lot with "Wake", as even the use of a token softer song takes place, with "Bitter Roots" sandwiched between two absolute pit destroyers. One of those being "Deserter" which contains a riff that could easily be mistaken to sound along the lines of either "Sempiternal" or "There Is A Hell..." eras of Bring Me The Horizon. Musically Deserter" is remarkable reminiscent of the Sheffield lads for the majority of the song, but the crushing vocals of Mattie Montgomery are far more superior and domineering than Oli Sykes' vocals would ever be.

What stands out most is the dark atmosphere that lingers within the songs. For that we can thank producer Will Putney who has worked on many albums In the metalcore and deathcore scenes in recent years, including Thy Art Is Murder's more recent album "Holy War" and Northlane's "Node". It is quite apparent that Putney had a lot of influence with "Wake" considering he also worked on For Today's previous album "Fight The Silence" which was only released at the beginning of last year.

While it feels like For Today will forever be one-dimensional, you could claim the argument of "why try to fix something that isn't broken?". Being pigeonholed into a niche certainly works for the Iowa lads as they continue to create metalcore bangers - one after another. They may not be taking August Burns Red's approach of trying to push the genre's boundaries, but playing it safe certainly hasn't harmed them. "Wake" is an album that fans of For Today and metalcore can listen to without having to fear any hidden surprises that might alienate them – I wish I could have said the same about Parkway Drive.

Download: Time And Tide, Wasteland, Broken Lens
For The Fans Of: Sleeping Giant, Martyr Defiled, Heart Of A Coward, Thy Art Is Murder, Texas In July
Listen: facebook.com

Release date 02.10.2015
Nuclear Blast Records