Albums

Album Review: Story Of The Year

Album: The Black Swan
Label: Epitaph

“We’re dying, but we don’t know what for / welcome to our New War”. So closes a record packed with political overtones, dystopian visions of the future, and enough vitriol to burn through the hull of a tank. This is Story of The Year’s new release, ‘The Black Swan’, and it kicks ass.

Opener “Choose Your Fate” sets the tone of the album to come – a George Bush quote is followed by an eruption of huge guitars and Dan Marsala’s bloodcurdling scream of “Liar!”, before roaring through 3 and a half minutes of shape-shifting brutality, finally coming full circle in one of the most satisfying closures to a song I’ve heard from this genre in a long time.

The song structures are where this record really comes alive – sure, it’s a heavy album, but the pacing and shifting of sections creates a constant and refreshing mixture of pop-rock sensibility and metal-inspired beatdown. If nothing else, check out the middle 8 of title track, in which guitarists Ryan Phillips and Philip Sneed drop a simple but humongous riff onto a half-speed drumbeat for one of the most headbang-friendly moments on the record.

Enough gushing, onto the bad bits. The songs feel a little too familiar in places, most notably on tracks ‘Message To The World’ and ‘The Antidote’ (which I had to check wasn’t an accidental rip from the Saosin album), but even these weaker offerings have an underlying energy which forced me to mini-mosh at my keyboard like a Churchill dog. The political aspect of the lyrics feel a little too in-your-face, at times verging on the preachy, but this is largely forgivable, and they raise some interesting viewpoints on the human race, the way we co-exist with each other and the universe we live in.

Sure, the songs are a tad predictable at times, but isn’t that why we love pop music? Pop metal’s values aren’t much different, and ‘The Black Swan’ satisfies their criteria in almost every way. Alternative, mainstream and irresistible all at once, it’s sure to put a large feather in their collective caps. A black swan feather, perhaps? Oh god. Oh…oh god.

For fans of: Saosin, Finch, Four Year Strong
Band links = Story Of The Year

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Tags: album, cd, Story Of The Year, black swan, review

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