RELEASED: October 27th, 2009
Atreyu has been a powerhouse since their breakthrough album "Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses" and "The Curse". This band is often mocked and dismissed as 'emo' but those criticisms often fail to see that Atreyu hasn't exactly been pidgeonholed into one style since "The Curse". From then on, the band's style has taken a turn to the power and glam metal side and at times even a southern metal side, as seen often on "Lead, Sails, Paper, Anchor", where the band came out with a more polished, radio friendly sound.
The album was highly successful yielding hits such as the anthemic "Becoming the Bull" and the bouncy pop track "Doomsday". The biggest problem with the band tends to be in the lyrics, which undoubtedly still take on 'emo' characteristics in describing broken and bleeding hearts and grown men crying, but, the band musically has gotten much sharper and their direction has become much clearer.
Now, we have this new album, "Congregation of the Damned".
Immediately off the bat, the guys seem to have taken a step back from the overwhelming power/glam metal feel to their last album, although done at their peril. The music right away sounds more hardcore and loyal to the original Atreyu sound, as well as it shows to be an appeasement to fan discontent over their last effort, deemed too mainstream by most fans.
The downfall is that the first 5-6 tracks on the album are dead weight. They seem empty and uninspired, akin to the feeling some people expressed about Metallica's new album.
"Bleeding is a Luxury" runs through with the same catchy chorus lines that Atreyu is known for, but while it is one of the albums better songs, the same uninspired feeling runs deep. The track is dull and musically offers nothing new except perhaps the interesting little "Phantom of the Opera" segue backed up by a wall of strings.
"Congregation of the Damned" falls short of being a great song, starting off with a dark but hooky verse that sort of pumps you up for a song middle that falls short of what the verse set you up for. This song especially suffers because the chorus is dead, without feeling, and made up of two power chords played alternately.
"Coffin Nails" has a similar feel, but it is simply sprinkled with decent guitar licks and a good vocal melody here and there, but much like the rest of the album, the tune lacks something defining. This tune has a defect that many of the other tunes on this album has, and that is that they feel like the songs might be better coming from a different band.
To round out a bad first half of the album, "Black Days Reign" attempts a bluesy entry into the album, similar to the song "Blow" on their last album, but again, the song simply falls short. "Throw your hands up in the air" and the rest of the lyrics are just terribly cliche. The music is weak and only offers the bluesy feel in the eighth note triple or 6/8 time feel that the song has until the solo at the bridge that once heard immediately takes you back to Metalica's "Reload" days.
"Gallows" is a song that attempts to nail down the Atreyu sound all in one tune, and they definitely have a measure of success on this one. The song again falters in its lyrics on the "beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat me down", making you wonder if it's an Atreyu or Michael Jackson album you were listening to.
"You were the king, now you're Unconscious" feels like a b-side to their last album. It is as listenable as any of the songs on "Lead", but the musicianship seems to be almost lazy in a song that seems to call for more aggression.
"Insatiable" pulls out strong as the best track on the album. It takes their flirting with the power metal sound to a new level and offers another one of those great anthemic choruses, "Nothing's good enough, I'm insatiable", preceded by an intensity building verse. This turns out to be the most cohesive song recorded for this album.
One of the few soft moments for the album, the song "So Wrong" is one of those hard rock ballads done with a slight hardcore edge, pulled off quite rightly although it can at times feel like one big hardcore cliche.
One of the heavier and more hardcore pieces is found on "Ravenous", heavily supported by that unmistakable thrash/hardcore drum rhythm and decorated by one of those short poppy drive by choruses that are gone before you had a chance to really double check what you had just heard, yet still happy you had heard it. This is also another one of the highlights from the album making the second half at least twice as good as the first.
"Lonely" is a laid back pop song that also ventures in and out from borderline cool sounding to cheese central. The song almost has an Avenged Sevenfold self titled feel to it, which at times is kind of disheartening, but of course, the comparing has been done before.
Overall, the album is heavily lacking a cohesive feeling. It sometimes gives the impression of confusion about whether or not they wanted to appease both older and new fans by not straying from either sounds. At the very least it feels heavily forced and not done because of a national progression of their sound.
Overall, I'd give the album a 2/5
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