Monday, January 24, 2011

Times Of Grace - The Hymn Of A Broken Man




Like most of my posts I have a very hard time trying to figure out where to begin especially with this post because i've already ranted about Jesse Leach previous to this post. So I guess the best thing to do is to go straight to the album. It's been pretty hard for me to give this album a rating of my own because i can't help but compare it to everything else Jesse has done with Killswitch Engage, Seemless, The Empire Shall Fall and others. Jesse Leach to me is what Devin Townsend is to my brother. Devin is more overall talented i'll give him that but i know that anything Devin puts out my brother will love it no matter what and that's how i am with Jesse. So anyways Times Of Grace. For some reason i don't know why but i feel like this album is dated. It doesn't sound like anything new. It has a sound of maybe......2002 to me. There is nothing wrong with that at all and I can say it is very, VERY refreshing for me to hear Jesse's vocals again without me knowing every single word that is coming up. One of the main reasons I have a been a huge fan of his work is because of lyrical content. A lot of people think of metal and think that it is all about hate and pain and yada yada. Well this is true about a lot of bands but Jesse's lyrics are quite the opposite. "Darkness pass away into the light of dawn" is just one example from the song called....."FIGHT FOR LIFE" which the name of the song itself tells you something. He likes to write songs that are very uplifting to not only to himself but anyone that listens to them. He is all about fighting through things in life and becoming a better person which is awesome in my opinion. One thing i am not a huge fan on is the occasional politcal song that preaches about government and blah blah... when i am listening to my music i don't want to hear about the system and how we should all stand up to "The Man". "The Hymn Of A Broken Man"is said to be the album of Jesse's career. I feel like he definitely spent a lot of time on this record. This album is definitely more tolerable to people that aren't into metal for sure. Yes there is screaming in it and some very brutal parts but overall it's filled with many great harmonizing vocals between Jesse and Adam D. which sound fantastic together. There are even songs where it is just Adam doing lead vocals which is pretty great seeing as how Adam has a great voice and is very talented and i think it's great that he is basically doing everything on his own in a song or two although i wish the songs were a little more upbeat. One of my main problems i have had with the album is all of the songs meshing together... it's kinda hard to tell the difference in a lot of them simply because they are all set up basically the same way which I guess you'd just have to listen to too understand what I am talking about. I really don't have a favorite song on the album yet at all which kinda makes me sad. To be honest with you i don't really see myself listening to much more of this album. Yeah the music is good but it just bores me to be honest. I can honestly say that in order for this album to appeal to me they need to step it up a couple notches.. I have very mixed feelings about this album. This is the conclusion i have for the album. 1. Jesse and Adam D. are great together. 2. They both write great music. 3. It just doesn't do it for me. 4. The album is dragging the whole time for me. It's almost redneck 93.5 music to me and i can't stand that. I want to love this album but i don't see it happening. I'm going to continue to listen to it and who knows i might change my mind but for now my mind is made up. I give this album 3 generous stars out of 5.

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