CaliAlive.com
Hardcore & Metal
| Blacklisted: Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God |
| Written by Kris Hewkin | |
| Friday, 04 April 2008 | |
 Released On Deathwish Inc. The layout for this record is top notch, featuring a really cool photograph by Melissa Farley. The colors are really vibrant and it's one of the more interesting covers for an album I've seen in a while. This record really picks up where "Peace on Earth, War on Stage" left off in my opinion. Many people are going to complain that this record isn't "Our Youth is Wasted" but I think that is what makes Blacklisted such a great and relevant band. If you dug their last release then I think you'll love this one. They continue to reinvent themselves with every release and never come close to going through the motions of making the same record over and over again that many bands do. The more "singy" vocals that were present on "Peace on Earth…" are used on this release once again. The lyrics are more personal than ever and the music more intense than ever. The record clocks in somewhere around 19 minutes with most songs being under 2 minutes. "Heavier Than Heaven…" features re-records of "Memory Layne" and "Canonized" from "Peace on Earth.." which is cool but I would rather have had more new songs personally. That is probably about the only piece of criticism I have about the record though. My favorite tracks include the longest one on the album "Circuit Breaker" which begins fast but then quickly slows down into a really slow yet powerful song with the lyrics "I have nothing to prove" repeated continuously. My 2nd favorite track "Wish" is a mid-tempo song that conveys so much raw emotion and anguish vocally, musically and lyrically. "Matrimony," a song where vocalist George Hirsch talks about his skepticism towards marriage, "tell me I'm childish all you want, I just want to love myself" is another favorite. The track is really fast with some standout guitar parts and then builds up into a powerful ending. Other great lyrics on this record: "please don't take my silence as passiveness" and "are you even human on the inside?" I could talk about this record for quite a while. Blacklisted is a band that is so far ahead of the game that most others fall short in comparison. George is my favorite current lyricist and I think that this may be his finest piece of work yet due to how personal and relatable the lyrics are to me. Intense fast parts and plenty of slower and mid-tempo parts/songs break it up and make this quite a well balanced record. Is April too early to declare this the best record of the year? 10/10 http://www. myspace. com/blacklisted http://www. deathwishinc. com Song Clips & Downloads... |
