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Haste The Day - When Everything Falls

 

	RELEASED: June 28th, 2005 PRODUCER:Ben Kaplan LABEL:Solid State Records BAND:Jimmy Ryan, Jason Barns, Brennan Chaulk, Devin Chaulk, Michael Murphy
+ Tight musicianship, good melodies, catchy songwriting - Quite formulaic, lack of variety	TRACKS: 1.Fallen 2.The Perfect Night 3.Walk On 4.When Everything Falls 5.If I Could See 6.Walls And Fear 7.For A Lifetime 8.This Time It’s Real 9.Bleed Alone 10.InstruMETAL 11.All I Have 12.Long Way Down

OVERVIEW

Haste the Day to me is kind of like a cheeseburger.  They take a lot of criticism for being unoriginal, too mainstream, not as heavy as some of their peers, and various other sorts of crap from critics and music fans alike.  What does that have to do with cheeseburgers, you ask?  Well, if you’re like me, every so often you just crave a big, sloppy, juicy hunk of beef, cheese, and bread, and not much else will cut it.  Drummer Devin Chaulk is still criminally underrated in metalcore circles, Jimmy Ryan’s throat-shredding rasp is still fairly unique even though it’s eyebrow-raisingly similar to Zao’s Dan Weyandt, and the guitars are leaps and bounds tighter than their previous effort “Burning Bridges”.  I knew these guys were capable of more, I swear!

            For those of you that don’t know the band, Haste the Day plays in the same league as bands like Atreyu and Bullet For My Valentine, but as far as I’m concerned, they’ve got more going for them than either band.  The songwriting on here cuts a lot of the hardcore aggression of “Burning Bridges” in favor of smoother melodic guitar work and overall refinement, and while some would call this record overproduced, the bottom line is that it’s slick, polished, and makes no apologies for what it is.

SONGS

Right from the frenzied intro of “Fallen”, it should be blatantly clear that HTD is cleaning up all the messiness and hitting the riff gym, and this song’s a straight-up adrenaline blast and a great opener.  “The Perfect Night” finds the band pulling out the same formula of heavy verse/clean chorus, and “Walk On” uses that formula again, but with MUCH better results during the out-of-nowhere breakdown-esque verse.  I’m still scratching my head as to why “When Everything Falls” was chosen as a lead-off single, as it’s honestly one of the weaker cuts on here – the chorus on here is just too sugary-sweet and sounds like it belongs on a Simple Plan record or something.  “If I Could See” is a bit better, and “Walls and Fear” sees the band jump right back into their niche again.  “For a Lifetime” finds the band making the most out of rapid-fire tremolo picking, gang-vocal choruses, and double-kick beats, which results in “This Time It’s Real” not really hitting that hard at first, but this song finally takes off around 1:40 and saves itself.  This brings us to the spectacular “Bleed Alone”, and HTD redlines the speed meter and ditches the clean vocals for one of the most brutal performances in their entire album catalog.  “InstruMETAL” is a catch-your-breath, um, instrumental that almost brings to mind mellower songs by The Used, and that quickly drops into the resolute “All I Have”, but that brings us to one of the best songs and biggest surprises on this record – a smashingly effective, rocked-out cover of the Goo Goo Dolls’ classic “Long Way Down”, and Haste the Day more than does this song justice.  This 90’s rock junkie approves, anyway.

CONCLUSION

Haste the Day pretty much set their targets on nailing today’s popular metalcore formula, and more often than not, the results are pretty darn good.  It’s not going to push the genre or anything, but as a good old cheeseburger of a record, it’s good stuff.

 

Review by Matt Rewinski

 

 

 

 

 

 

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