These Tales of The Widow and a Bloodsucker Might Draw You In

Author's Rating:

Pros: Intense. Unstructured. Well-written lyrics.

Cons: 35-and-change minutes, 10 tracks? Not enough. Sometimes too unstructured.

The Bottom Line: 
If you want sheer volume without sacrificing lyrical or vocal prowess, and, like me, aren't into metal, great pick. Decent pick for everyone else.

Author's Review
Ah yes, the birthday present CD. There were several on my list (as my Wish List implies), but due to certain other expenses, I got this one: As Cities Burn’s Son, I Loved You At Your Darkest. Having gotten excited by www.jesusfreakhideout.com’s raving review (4 ½ stars out of 5, and they rarely give 5s), and slightly dampened by fellow Epinionators’, music clips and JFH’s review won me over. While I found out it’s not the style of music I’m usually into, it impressed me nonetheless. Well, it took a bit. Why?

The Style
At times, I labeled ACB as metalcore, but really, it’s just a more intense brand of screamo when you boil it down. But there’s some definite metalcore vibes. And the lead vocalist has a scream that reminds me of blindside’s Christian Lindskog. Course, his singing voice is miles from Christian’s, but that’s beside the point. Another noteworthy feature is the lack of structure, but that is at once pro and con. It’s original and prevents repetition, sure, but it does lead to an overly chaotic feel at times, which took a while to get used to. And who constructs this chaotic feel?

The Band
Pascal Barone-bass
Cody Bonnete-guitar, vocals
TJ Bonnete-vocals
Colin Kimble-guitar
Aaron Lunsford-drums

The Good

The album wastes little time in kicking off with the raging, ridiculously long-titled Thus from My Lips, By Yours, My Sin is Purged. Cody’s ferocious screams do nothing to hurt this frantic piece laden with high riffs and a well-written chorus of “Stepping in and out of this shadow…” While that’s certainly the track’s highlight, several ferocious verses and TJ’s singing in the bridge, putting a nice spin on “Amazing Grace” with his line “I once was blind, but now I just look away”. Only a lengthy, weak instrumental ending (even thought the song is only 3:04) hurt this one.

Quick drumming leads into the heavy opener of Love Jealous One, Love. While the intensity is cool, the more melodic part is amazing, as TJ and Cody switch vocal duties with awesome lyrics behind them: “We will wear compassion/ we will wear it on our chests…like a child, it’s all I know” However, soon after, the volume takes a severe drop, letting TJ sing mournfully “I know now that glory has not a place near my hands or any man…” until a minute of instrumentals end it. I think these guys might be suffering from East West syndrome: solid songs in abundance, but they’re too short.

There’s some definite hook to Bloodsucker Pt. II, the sequel (somehow) to track 3. Breaking the usual rule of sequels, this one is a lot better, with its very catchy, punky chorus and TJ’s singing “You can have it if it means that much to you”. The tempo drops soon after for a time to make room for more volume, and the sheer headbanger factor, with pounding guitars and drums amidst rampant screams, just makes that cool. It’s the coda, though, that takes the cake: Cody roars “Are you the man now/ that you’ve got what you wanted?” against a powerful instrumental background and it is utterly fantastic. Sad this well-written song comparing society to a conformist machine has to end with another weak instrumental piece.

Taking the prize of longest title on the album (and 2nd-longest of the year, #1 being UnderOATH’s “I’ve Got Ten Friends and a Crowbar that Says You Ain’t Gonna Do Jack”) is Terrible! How Terrible for the Great City!” A soft, distorted piece opens it as TJ sings mournfully before Cody’s roars jolt us into high gear. Speaking of UnderOATH the verse definitely has their influence all over it, with a punky piece about guy-girl relationships (“You love too much to tell her you don’t love her at all…”) The next piece really rocks with its pounding drums and squealing guitar as it leads into the also nice-riffed chorus. A while later is a sweet coda, with screams and high riffs all over, much like UnderOATH’s masterpiece “Down, Set, Go”. Great stuff all around…

…But nothing like this. The Widow shifts into ballad mode and lets TJ take over the mic for a mournful song about his father that left him. While the entire song is incredibly well-written (aside from one stray line: “My mother’s heart breaks like the water inside of her”), I’m just posting the best of the best:

My God, what a world You love
Where men bury their sons and without thought
Just walk away…
Dead man, is it being high that makes you alive?
It makes you leave behind three boys and a wife in '89
As the track marks inched their way up your arm
My mother taught my brothers and I not to call you daddy, but to call you father…
Amazing. And the bare-bones approach, with the instrumentals none too prominent, doesn’t hurt. When the rest of the band comes in, it just adds a cool aura. The bridge shows off TJ’s vocal prowess as well as the guitar skills of one of the two players. As TJ leaves us with the first line of the chorus to think about before transitioning to the next song…wow. Fantastic.

Wake Dead Man, Wake starts right off, with some awesome guitar interlacing with the Bonnetes’ screams from God’s point of view, questioning someone’s love for Him. A ferociously heavy piece soon follows, with everything just pounding loud and slow and just ruling. The bridge starts fairly quiet, but gets heavier and eerier before Cody roars the album title amidst sweet riffage…and there’s one of those crappy drawn-out endings, this one loaded with feedback. Doesn’t help the fact that the ending, but oh well, good otherwise.

Ending the album is the longest track, the 6:38 Of Want and Misery: The Nothing that Kills, which starts with echoing guitar that reminds me of the old Sega Genesis game Ecco: The Tides of Time. The verse is mellow, punky, and catchy, and in general pretty good. Cody’s screams are still welcome, though, as he screams about his desperate quest to save a friend from suicide. Still, the sung-and-screamed chorus is nice: “I know it’s not you, my dear, it’s the nothing that kills…” A long instrumental phrase follows, but I actually like this one, and the passionately heavy phrase that follows is sweet. A guitar solo follows before everything fades but TJ and a piano as he croons (first time I said this word in this review!) the chorus. The other instruments join in for one last screamfest from Cody in a very powerful coda…well, except for the faint speaking and strumming at the end, but heck, great song anyway.

The Average

Incomplete is a Leech has some impressive little opening riffs that soon shift into the twin screaming attack the brothers Bonnete conjured. It’s the random soft piece that comes of for some inexplicable reason that hurts this song a lot. It lasts over a minute, and really just takes up space. While the rest of the song tries to make up for it with an intense few sections, climaxed by a furious ending (Cody roars “Bloodsucker!” over and over), that random soft piece is virtually unforgivable.

Here’s another UnderOATH copy: as I listen to Admission: Regret, I keep expecting their old vocalist, Dallas Taylor, to come in screaming like “When the Sun Sleeps”, but oh well, the intro is awesome, especially the wailing guitar that precedes a much lower-pitched verse. It still sounds good, and has a nice punky vibe going on. The riffs in the chorus are cool, although Cody’s super-low scream isn’t so much. After a little distorted piece, with the nice line “Come untie me from this bed…from the wicked things I love…”, a heavy bridge with a choir comes in to wrap this song about trying to escape sexual obsessions up.

One: Twentyseven opens with some rhythmic guitar before a fairly heavy verse comes in, but it’s the chorus that’s nice: “Shame is the anchor tied around my ankle/ shame keeps me low and close to the bottom…” The bridge stays slow as Cody and TJ scream their way through, blaming themselves for not showing God’s love and being ashamed in general. The ending, of course, is another long, prolonged phrase that does nothing to help an average song.

With not a truly bad song to be found, let’s go to the final scores…

Final Scores
1. Thus From My Lips, By Yours, My Sin is Purged-84%
2. Love Jealous One, Love-86%
3. Incomplete is a Leech-76%
4. Bloodsucker Pt. II-83%
5. Terrible! How Terrible For The Great City!-91%
6. The Widow-96%
7. Wake Dead Man, Wake-81%
8. Admission: Regret-78%
9. One: Twentyseven-75%
10. Of Want and Misery: The Nothing That Kills-92%
4 Stars

Good For Fans Of…UnderOATH, blindside’s heavier works