Released January 8, 2013
Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones opens up with a confusing monologue titled "Exordium," and then the first real track "I am Bulletproof" hits you hard. The track opens with a lead guitar solo. The singing sounds extremely forced in this track, as if he has to make his voice sound like the way that it does. After about half way into the song, there is a bridge. The bridge tries to put way too many ideas into one 45 second section and can't really be considered stable. After the final refrain, the track ends on a weak scream from the vocalist.
The album eases into "New Years Day" very well. This song is much more controlled then the previous one, although the drummer seems to be trying to make himself more noticeable. The odd violin solo even works in this song. The guitar solo (which at this point I assume will be in all of the following songs) is quick and effortless. The whole song is good, and really illustrates that sometimes less is more, even though there were some sections that were extraneous.
The album is filled with things called "F.E.A.R. Transmissions" which I assume are small monologues based around the idea of fear. This first one is just as confusing as the intro track, and I don't really see the point in them, although the way they're orchestrated makes for good segues between tracks.
After the first transmission, "Wretched and Divine" starts with more lead. Deep singing comes up, but the song loses its momentum by the chorus which is weakly sung. The lyrics are a bit awkward, almost as if he wanted to say "I know what the words Wretched and Divine mean, let me make a song off of that." Other than that, the song seems to follow the same formula as the past two songs. It's retains the control from "New Years Day," but also retains the weak singing from "I am Bulletproof."
Next is "We Don't Belong," which opens with building anticipation. The song feels like it's going to explode at any second, but it keeps you held on, waiting for it. And I actually showed some excitement waiting for it. But when the loudness actually hits, it's weak. It's weak in general, not even because we were eased into it. The chorus makes the silly remark that "We don't belong here, we don't belong" without really explaining to us why we don't, even in the verses. This track doesn't do enough, in comparison to the previous tracks.
The second transmission is just as absurd as the previous ones, as I predicted.
It does connect nicely to the following track, however, "Devil's Choir." This shows the singer resulting back to the awkward, forced, slightly-garbled singing from the first track. The guitarist here is trying to do way too much, even in the chorus, where his playing, however intricate, takes away from the song. The actual guitar "solo" isn't impressive in this song, no buildup. It just sounds like show-offy riffing.
"Resurrect the Sun" opens softly with electronic beats and clicking. Here, when the instruments actually come in, as opposed to "We Don't Belong," the music is strong, catchy, and well-made. This track is arguably the best off of the album thus far. All of the keyboards and electronic instrumentation meshes well with the real instruments. The guitar solo shows a real attempt to impress instead of show off (although it's still a tad short).
The next song is "Overture," which I guess is an overture. I don't get it. An overture to what? I don't know. I suppose it's just rhythm guitarist Jinxx trying to show everyone he doesn't just play rhythm guitar.
Either way, the song flows nicely into "Shadows Die," which starts off with a cool neo-classical feel. Then the music hits you hard in a good way. This particular song feels very Avenged Sevenfold-esque. The song is pretty much the same as all of the other tracks until about half way through where the song makes a sort of confused call to action in its listeners. Then the song continues, and it begins to become tiresome. The song is too long to not move anywhere.
Another strange short segue track, entitled "Abeyance," which then goes into "Days are Numbered." The songs starts with a Crazy Train-like riff, and is really charged with energy. The song pulls you through it pretty well. The chorus is slower, but it doesn't necessarily remove the energy that it had. The track features a notable contribution from The Used's Bert McCracken. This track's energy and spastic, hectic bridge is very controlled and sounds good in context with the song.
The next song is "Done for You," a song that sounds an awful lot like the cliched soft semi-romantic track in the middle of a hard rock album. Oh right, it is. Jokes aside, the song doesn't hold much value. It's instantly forgettable and doesn't really make you feel anything, especially if you're listening to it in the context of the whole album. The lyrics are vague and don't seem genuine and the backing instruments just seem very generic.
Track 15 is "Nobody's Hero," which goes right back into that loudness. Reviewing this album is becoming tiresome, may I note, because these tracks lack any true variety. They all follow a very similar structure and formula. The lyrics of this track really makes you wonder, does anyone really consider him their hero? (Don't answer that).
The next song is "Lost It All," which starts off like "Done for You," but works its way up a bit into a louder, fuller sound. It sounds like a modern hair metal track. Featuring singing from the greatly talented Julia Simms of Automatic Loveletter, this track DOES work as a kinda inspirational track. I feel this track in my body, it really is a very good song and it captures that nostalgic sound.
This strange Transmission thing doesn't work, and I think they should have taken it out in order to play down their semi-annoying "larger-than-life" attitude.
Anyway, the last full song on the album is "In the End," the first and only single off of the album to date. The track sounds like it doesn't know what it wants to be, heavy? Poppy? Dark? Uplifting? I think they want to transcend those categories, but they instead sound like a confusion of all of them. I think, personally, that there are many other better choices for a single off of this album. The solo is showy. The track follows the same basic formula as the other tracks, but somehow, this one does it slightly worse.
The album ends with a "Final Transmission," and I still have no idea what's going on. Was this a concept album? Should I have been listening harder? Is there a message? Why'd he say fear for no reason?
Anyway, all in all, the album was much better than I anticipated. The album's main flaws were that the band tried to show off way too much and that all of the songs sounded pretty much the same, with some key tracks here and there. The album did an excellent job, however, in flowing from one track to the next (even when it was through those stupid transmissions).
RATING - 6/10
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