If I seemed a bit bitter with my review of Wires...and the Concept of Breathing, it's because I listened to Adelphia right after it, and so I already knew they wouldn't be fixing everything I had hoped. I like this record, and I'm not going to call Adelphia "WATCOB 2.0", but in the next few paragraphs there's a good chance I'm going to criticize it for similar reasons.
Let me start with what A Skylit Drive did better with this album: There's a much, much bigger difference from song to song. Most tracks seem to have their own substance, and this album feels like a good ten or eleven songs. Compare that to WATCOB, which felt like perhaps four really long songs. They do a lot more instrumentally here, and everything sounds cleaner and more crisp, which only helps separate it from other tracks.
Lyrics are a bit more notable on Adelphia, word choice seems more interesting and the story in each song seems to be presented much better. I'll also admit that Jag does give a little more thought into his words at some points in the album. During "Children of Adelphia", I hear the sincerity in the lines "First to the sea/Then to the sky/It's beautiful, I know you'll like it." and that's great. The problem is, it appears to be just coincidental: "The final piece that I need is that spark in your eye/Where did it go?," is a great lyric, but Jag sings it as if he's reading it off of a sign or something. I'm not ready to fully appreciate A Skylit Drive because they don't seem sincere about their message.
The biggest stand-out on Adelphia is probably "The Children of Adelphia". It has the whole package: great, heavy screams, a light-hearted chorus with a sing-a-long section, some nice synth bits, and some pretty good lyrics to boot. "Thank God It's Cloudy Cause I'm Allergic to Sunlight" and "Eva the Carrier" are pretty weird songs, but listening to the entire length of both tracks is a satisfactory experience. I absolutely love the synth that appears about half-way through the former. There's still a filler song, "Words End in Whispers Not Bangs" and most of the songs I didn't list aren't amazing, but worth a couple of listens.
Adelphia isn't a masterpiece, but it does show some progression in A Skylit Drive's sound, and I'm interested to see what the band comes out with next year. This album doesn't remind me of any other post-hardcore record and for that I praise it. Fans of the genre are probably safe in going out and buying this one, but if you're on the edge you can give parts of the album a listen. Maybe if the guys enroll Jag into a few storytelling classes, we'll see a stellar third full-length release next year.
1 comments:
I actually feel the exact opposite about their records. I find Adelphia to be repetitive and bland, and the production just doesn't feel the same and the passion is left in the dust. WATCOB had a few decent break downs and Jag's vocals were 10x more memorable for me. His melody lines were so much catchier and made me want to sing along. Adelphia just made me want to switch CD's. I barely could make it through the whole thing in one sitting.
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