Review Like Moths to Flames - When We Don't Exist 2011

When first looking at this band I can notice that nothing really speaks for it being a really good album, of all the bands we have reviewed here at Hallowed only one band with four words in the band name has received six or more points and no band with four words in the name has ever been awarded the highest rating. Only one of the seven pointers have more than two words in the band name and that third word is a “the” so looking at those statistics there is not much going for Like Moths to Flames. Sure there can always be exceptions to this rule so before I had a listen to the band I had no opinion and these facts I have only found out when I begun writing the review text. Longer album titles does not seem to indicate anything like that though though (but very long seems to be applied to not so good albums).

Chris Roetter the vocalist is a name often mentioned along with this band it would seem, I have no idea who that guy is but according to the press info he has been in some bands I have never heard of and so on, sales talk. Sales talk also states that this band created a buzz in their hometown of Ohio which is a mecca for metalcore and stuff apparently, this led to the band being signed by Rise Records who are said to have a knack for finding “the next big thing”. They have released an EP prior to this album which is their first. The album is called When We Don’t Exist which I am sure some of the guys reviewing the album was hoping that it was a fact. There were some poor and some quite good scores on the reviews I found for this band when I was browsing for information about the band.

Post-hardcore or metalcore are words used to label this band in a genre, it might be true as other similar bands seem to be getting the same etiquette. Their music is hardcore which meets heavy metal with some melodic touches and some aggressive ones, the vocals are varied between clean and growls or the other way around maybe. The songs are built to a standard metal structure maybe to see to it that the listener does not get lost in something, no song really stand out as different on the album as they all have the same structure and almost the same playing time as well. Therefore I would say that it is a coherent album which in the regular edition has eleven tracks and plays for just short of 36 minutes. There is one edition with three bonus tracks for those of you who things 36 minutes is to little.

I think that imagination is a word unknown to these guys, their music plays exactly according to the rule book of the genre. There is nothing that stands out from the description and the songs are all very similar and nowhere on this album is there anything that will surprise you as a listener, just the same all the way through. Mediocrity is a word I think of when listening to this album, the songs are just drab, dull and similar all the way through, nothing grabs me anywhere during the 36 minutes it plays and the fact is that these 36 minutes feel like very long 36 minutes. There just is nothing new, nothing exciting in this band’s music it is just metalcore.

I think though that it sounds rather good when having it in the background not really listening, then it sounds really good but as soon as you starts listening that feeling goes away immediately. The production is very good and the album has a very good sound but it feels a bit cowardly with a band that is afraid to do anything that might alienate any teenage fan. I think this is an album that will never polarise an audience and the natural reaction to this album is a resigned shrug of the shoulders. It is a safe album that in the technical sense is really well made but the songs are lacking a lot, I think though that it probably will do well commercially as young teenagers will probably love it and their mothers will then buy it to them. So if you find this album interesting, ask your mother to buy it for you.

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Like Moths to Flames When we Don't Exist

Like Moths to Flames
When we Don't Exist