Evergreen Terrace - Almost Home - Review

Attention to all you who nay-say the connection between hardcore punk and metal. I challenge you now! What evidence have I, you ask? Well today I come bearing Evergreen Terrace’s newest album ‘Almost Home’. This band has been on an upward slope for a long time now, and this one defiantly hasn’t gone over the hill yet. It has left delicious flavours in my mouth, manly flavours like metal and kick-ass! You take a couple breakdowns, and mix with a healthy sprinkling of punk beats and what do you get? Metalcore! A stomach sickness with feet and elbows.

Booked with Metal Blade Records, they share the spotlight with other well known acts such as As I Lay Dying and Unearth (as well as a lot of other bands that would scare your grandparents). They have propped themselves up into a place of comfort, but they’re still putting in effort. As their fifth full length album, it is impressive that they have improved with each one this far. I sincerely hope that with such a great album streak, that ‘Almost Home’ is not their peak.

The album opener introduces it very creatively with fun sounds that their guitarist can make, thus setting the mood. ‘Enemy Sex’ is a representation of the sound that they have adopted since ‘Wolfbiker’. The quick pace is still there, but an angrier metal presence is present. This time around, they’re favouring punk beats over simple metal chugging a good deal more. Only a minute or so into the song, their quaint love of the breakdown is still made apparent. I like it so far. The title track takes the next set with a very punk sound, but you also feel the metal influence from Andrew Carey’s unique scream. A guitar solo flares it up but the lovely clean vocals from guitarist Craig Chaney really take the cake on the chorus.

In beautiful Evergreen Terrace style, the title of the following song, ‘God Rocky, Is This Your Face?’ is a reference to TV show ‘Family Guy’. It’s a real pump up, fast beats, metal gang screaming, and precision drumming on the part of drummer Kyle Mims. It’s a merciless piece of work, definitely showing off the feeling of ‘Almost Home’ as it identifies itself from ‘Wolfbiker’ with much heavier aspects. ‘We’re Always Losing Blood’ kicks it back with standard clean vocals again, and even some tweedling, which seems to be much more prevalent in metal lately. Besides an out of place breakdown, this song is pretty chill. So don’t even worry about the hardcore comeback in ‘Sending Signals’. By now it became clear to me that ET hasn’t really changed much since ‘Wolfbiker’. But then again it doesn’t sound completely like the previous album.

The energy of their past effort isn’t as present as it was before, but the Evergreen Terrace sound is still etched into every song. It’s slightly more relaxed and even more composed than previously. A lot of the new songs sound more professional. But set aside what I said for a few minutes while you get your ears boxed by ‘Mario Speedwagon’. The high guitaring in this song is most impressive and actually reminds me of some kind of metal remix of Mario Kart music. But that’s just me.

Moving on, a somber opening to ‘Failure To Operate’ confuses at first but strikes hard in a matter of seconds. By calming down the choruses in a lot of the songs with clean vocals to replace the screaming, a healthy balance is found. A breakdown for a bridge trims up the ensemble and left me happy. Another sober intro in ‘Hopelessly Hopeless’ explains a change up in this album. Not nearly as many songs start off fast and hard like before. I’m glad they’re trying new things, but I miss the fast and hard. The album sounds more mature, but that isn’t always a good thing in my books.

Time for an interlude! ‘The Letdown’ is a compression of intensity. It builds you up and then shatters your enthusiasm by ending at the minute-forty mark, in true hardcore punk style. But it’s like an appetizer for what’s coming up next, one of the best songs on the album. ‘I’m a Bullet Proof Tiger’ goosebumped me up all good. The guitar riff in this song is ominous and menacing. It’s a keeper really, they even managed to fit in a catchy chorus and mix their clean vocals and screaming agreeably. I only had to wait too long to hear it.

The final song, ‘Not Good Enough’ was as close to ‘touchy feely’ as I think a song can be while still holding a metal stance. It wrapped up the album in a good way. It felt like an ending to me. So by the time the album came to a close, I felt satisfied.

It wasn’t as incredible as I thought it would be, to be honest, but at the same time there was nothing wrong with it. It just didn’t hold itself and my attention up as well as ‘Wolfbiker’ did. That being said, many of you to hear it may disagree and think it is a step up from last time. It has the potential to be a great album; it was a different album and told a different story. I personally enjoyed the hairy, mangled sound of their previous efforts. So all I can say is that I encourage any fans to listen in and form your own opinion. I’m handing over 3 and a half napkins out of 5.

Artist: Evergreen Terrace
Album: Almost Home
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release: September 29, 2009
Rating : 3.5/5