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By GREG MAKI
On their fifth studio album (the third with vocalist Howard Jones and second to be self-titled), Killswitch Engage knows what they do well and rarely deviates from it: Relentlessly pummeling verses, taking their cues from both hardcore and classic metal, lead to choruses powered by swelling vocal melodies. Such a simple description, though, seems to belittle a band that has become one of the leading forces in American heavy music.
With Brendan O’Brien on board, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz shares production duties for the first time, resulting in a sound that is as big and heavy as we’ve come to expect, but also more stripped down and rough around the edges than usual. It’s the rare album that builds as it progresses, consistently improving from track to track, to such an extent that its strongest songs are the last two—“Lost,” with its slow, menacing riff, and “This Is Goodbye,” an alternately ferocious and melodic number that is quintessential Killswitch. Nothing leapt out and grabbed me like the best songs in the band’s catalog (“The End of Heartache,” “A Bid Farewell,” “My Curse,” “My Last Serenade”), but I don’t anticipate hitting the skip button on anything either. New fans who came to the band through their cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver” might be disappointed by not finding a song along those lines here. The closest they get is maybe “Take Me Away,” which starts with a galloping guitar riff a la Iron Maiden, then becomes their most accessible song to date.
Killswitch was one of the originators of metalcore, a subgenre that quickly fell out of favor with metal fans because so many other bands copied the sound they achieved on Alive or Just Breathing (2002) and The End of Heartache (2004). Though they haven’t changed much since, on Killswitch Engage they show the style can still sound fresh when played by one of the heavyweights. |
