THE ALBUM OF THE DAY IS…
AT ALL COST, TIME TO DECIDE
In light of Vince’s rave review of At All Cost’s performance at the South by Southwest Festival earlier this week, and the announcement that the band has just signed to Century, I thought we should take a look at their first official release through Combat Records. At All Cost might sound like a million other Swedecore bands out there right now, except that acts like It Dies Today never wrote a song as good as, well, pretty much any track on here. The musicianship is top notch and the band puts their own spin on the whole cleanly-sung chorus thing by using a vocoder effect over all the non-screaming parts; that might seem like just a gimmick, but it’s surprisingly effective. Furthermore, there’s nary a traditional breakdown in sight on the whole disc- instead, the band often shifts gears into funky dance grooves that recall much of Mike Patton’s work. The band hails from Texas, but they do away with all clichéd notions of red-blue state divisions with their political anthems, ranging from the cover art to the opening track, “Death to Distraction,” in which they ponder “We are at war, but what is it for?” What’s amazing is that all of these elements blend together seamlessly, and never seem like anything other than totally catchy, totally kick-ass metal.
-AR
Buy It’s Time to Decide
