WHAT HAVE ALL THAT REMAINS OVERCOME?

“I’d hate to be in one of those bands where every song has screamed verses and sung choruses. We’re averse to writing songs with any kind of formula.”

-Phil Labonte, Decibel, October 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, seven of the eleven songs on All That Remains’ latest, Overcome, follow this exact formula.

Of the five songs that do not, one, “A Song for the Hopeless,” simply inverts it, so that the verses are sung and the chorus is screamed.

And one is a cover.

And I’m just gonna come out and say it: Phil Labonte shouldn’t be doing clean vocals. I know I sound like the cranky old dude who hates clean vocals, but I swear, I’m not opposed to clean vocals in theory. It’s just that some people have no talent for it. Look: I wouldn’t wanna hear Bruce Dickinson suddenly try out a hardcore bark or Rob Halford attempt a death metal growl. And I don’t wanna hear Phil Labonte do clean vocals. His attempts sound neither full-bodied nor emotive, and their robotic nature probably isn’t helped by an over-reliance on that most wretched of monkeys on music’s back, autotune. Little wonder that “Relinquish,” a song without a trace of any actual singing, is the album’s undeniable highlight.

(For the record, I also genuinely enjoyed the album’s opening song, “Before the Damned,” because even if the riff is kinda generic, it made me wanna headbang. And it has a well-timed guitar squeal at the 1:17 mark. So I’m willing to ignore the fact that it sounds like Max Headroom is singing the chorus.)

For their part, the other members of All That Remains are doing their best to make able American New Wave-style metal. Lead guitarist Oli Herbert pulls off some catchy solos. But there’s nothing here you haven’t heard before. In fact, this very band made an album a few years back that did it all better. It was called The Fall of Ideals.

And, oh yeah, that cover I mentioned before is of Nevermore’s “Believe in Nothing.” But it’s one of those covers that mostly just makes you wanna listen to the original. Probably in no small part because it’s four and half minutes of Labonte at his autotuniest.

So, yeah. That happened.

(one and a half out of five horns)

-AR