WHAT HAVE ALL THAT REMAINS OVERCOME?
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
“I’d hate to be in one of those bands where every song has screamed verses and sung choruses. We’re averse to writing songs with any kind of formula.”
-Phil Labonte, Decibel, October 2008
Ladies and gentlemen, seven of the eleven songs on All That Remains’ latest, Overcome, follow this exact formula.
Of the five songs that do not, one, “A Song for the Hopeless,” simply inverts it, so that the verses are sung and the chorus is screamed.
And one is a cover.
And I’m just gonna come out and say it: Phil Labonte shouldn’t be doing clean vocals. I know I sound like the cranky old dude who hates clean vocals, but I swear, I’m not opposed to clean vocals in theory. It’s just that some people have no talent for it. Look: I wouldn’t wanna hear Bruce Dickinson suddenly try out a hardcore bark or Rob Halford attempt a death metal growl. And I don’t wanna hear Phil Labonte do clean vocals. His attempts sound neither full-bodied nor emotive, and their robotic nature probably isn’t helped by an over-reliance on that most wretched of monkeys on music’s back, autotune. Little wonder that “Relinquish,” a song without a trace of any actual singing, is the album’s undeniable highlight.
(For the record, I also genuinely enjoyed the album’s opening song, “Before the Damned,” because even if the riff is kinda generic, it made me wanna headbang. And it has a well-timed guitar squeal at the 1:17 mark. So I’m willing to ignore the fact that it sounds like Max Headroom is singing the chorus.)
For their part, the other members of All That Remains are doing their best to make able American New Wave-style metal. Lead guitarist Oli Herbert pulls off some catchy solos. But there’s nothing here you haven’t heard before. In fact, this very band made an album a few years back that did it all better. It was called The Fall of Ideals.
And, oh yeah, that cover I mentioned before is of Nevermore’s “Believe in Nothing.” But it’s one of those covers that mostly just makes you wanna listen to the original. Probably in no small part because it’s four and half minutes of Labonte at his autotuniest.
So, yeah. That happened.
(one and a half out of five horns)
-AR
I didn’t like the album either, although I do enjoy fall of ideals quite a bit
yeah, overcome wasnt that good =/ labonte’s singing sucks on this album. fall of ideals was awesome..oh well cant please everybody i guess. plenty of other albums out there :D
Actually, Rob Halford does a pretty great death metal growl during the chorus of “Metal Gods” at live shows now. But regardless, this album isn’t very good.
Save your money for the new Unearth – which sounds like the proper follow-up to The Oncoming Storm
I guess they sold about 176,000 copies of the last record. All these bands have to have a generic formula to sell records in this country. Metal is not doing so well here. The only way to make it sell is to dumb it down so the metal heads girlfriends will buy it too.
If these guys didnt have clean vocals they would have sold about maybe 10k. You would be hearing about certain members quiting because they cant afford to pay rent and tour.
I’ve been a huge ATR fan for a long time, and I bought this CD because I’ll buy anything they put out. However, I was pretty disappointed by this one. Not so much by the clean vocals, but more so by the lack of inspiration overall. Only three or four of the songs excited me. The rest of them just plain sucked: strange riffs, awkward timing, bad choruses.
Phil’s clean vocals wouldn’t be so bad if he reproduce them live, but he can’t, which makes it blatantly obvious that there’s a lot of studio magic on the album.
I aswell was disappointed by this release. But i don’t really agree that Phil shouldn’t sing. I think he has a good singing voice but it just doesn’t work very well on this album and the formula like mentioned is pretty lame at this point. But the guitarwork is pretty good. But it doesn’t hold a candle for ‘TFoI’. Highlights tracks are ‘Chiron’, ‘Relinquish’ and ‘Overcome’.
Always been a pretty big ATR fan. I remember seeing them a few times even before the first record, and being impressed.
That said, I do not like this new CD at all.
It’s not even the clean singing that kills it for me. It’s just the fact that every song is pretty much the exact same generic cut and paste job.
Got the CD, listened to it a few times, and then decided I probably won’t listen to it anymore. Boo to that.
Phil, why did you let them quote you in print saying that?
the Production and mastering isn’t as clean on this record. Because of one thing, the lack of Adam D. I was disappointed with this record as well, it didn’t suck THAT bad, I just expected a bit more diversity. I wasn’t even a huge fan of The Fall of Ideals that much really either, reminded me too much of Killswitch, but not quite as memorable. I saw them live while touring the last record and their new drummer could hardly keep up with the MIDI beats on FOI lol. Hopefully he can play these songs live.
I enjoyed the album quite a bit. Then again, It’s the only full album i’ve heard. I gotta listen to Fall of Ideals now
@Patrick Pintavalle
I wouldn’t go as far as to say metal isn’t doing very good, because while there are quite a few bands (i.e. Killswitch, All that Remains, Soilwork etc.) that have our girlfriends on their nuts for the clean vocals, not everyone is going that route. I completely see what you’re saying about the girlfriend thing though. Killswitch Engage and All that Remains are probably the two biggest culprits as far as that goes.
@Anthony
You wont be disappointed man. The Fall of Ideals is a fucking great listen. It gets a little tired after 3 or 4 listens but not for lack of heaviness.
Am I the only one that thinks the track Two Weeks is complete garbage? The whole disc is good, not great, and radio friendly enough to make them some money to fill the gas tank a few times, cant really blame them for playing it safe, which is the best way to describe Overcome, playing it safe. Not too crazy, not too mellow, not too much screaming, not too much singing. But man, Two weeks is atrocious in comparison of anything from This Darkened Heart or Fall of Ideals. The song is not the band progressing in any direction, its a strait up radio song that some producer harrrased them into recording. I wouldnt call them sellouts but are they attempting to get into the next Madden game with this? What is it? What chart was shown to them?
The album wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible in my opinion. Also, in his defense, he said “every song,” and 7 out of 11 isn’t “every song.”
I saw them live just a few days ago. They seem to know it’s not being received very well as they only played 2 new tracks and stuck with all the goodness of This Darkened Heart and The Fall of Ideals.
However, the new songs (they played Chiron and Two Weeks) sound MUCH better live.
In other news, Trivium also played that night and they put on one of the worst performances I have seen since The Number 12 Looks Like You.
I like this album, but I’ve heard so many people complain about the clean vocals. Is it that they sound bad or sound weird? They layered the living shit out of the clean vocals for what effect, I don’t know. It will be interesting to hear how the clean sound live.
Terrible album? No. If you’re going to complain about digital effects and corrections, then you’re going to complain every time an album comes out, regardless of the band, because they all have them. Next if you complain that the sound is generic, remember that it’s an All That Remains album. If you were expecting them to sound like someone different then you should have bought something different. The guitars sound like typical Oli and Mike Martin. The only legitimate complain that you can have is that there is the layered clean vocals. If you don’t want clean vocals in ATR then go buy behind the silence and Solitude and nothing else.
Lastly, I heard that Firewind covered Believe In Nothing recently and Apollo has some mean pipes.
Fuckin Rock Solid Album. A lot of songs are amazing. WHo gives a shit if they follow a loose formula? Here’s a hint: It works. Ever heard of a little band called, oh, I dunno, Scar Symmetry? They follow the formula. How about bands like Epicurean and Trivium. If it works and sounds good then I don’t care.
Overcome takes a little bit to grow on you, at first I thought it sucked compared to TFoI but after some spins it’s actually approaching it in goodness.
axl you nailed it again. just sounds like rehashed stuff from the last two albums, and less impressive at that. don’t get me wrong, i liked both a lot and saw them absolutely kill a couple months ago with the mighty chimaira (both were equally awesome to be honest) but with no signs of progression or reinvention why should anyone give a fuck?!
This album is amazing. Not as good as either of their last two albums (both of which are metalcore classics in my books) but still very, very solid.
The album is mediocre, and maybe just maybe Phil will not sing ever again. That’d be great.
Being a huge ATR fan, I have to say I agree with you 100%. I threw the CD in my player and the first thing I said was ,”No way this is Phil. He sounds like a tool.” Definitely not a great CD, but it will still get enough spins out of me to know when and where in a song to start making Phil Labonbte jokes. Start working on a new CD, boys.
i thought the album was incredible. his vocals, the music, the lyrics…it all got to me and i haven’t been able to put the album off. i think they pulled it off amazingly well and i’m glad they stepped out of the box.
“The only way to make it sell is to dumb it down so the metal heads girlfriends will buy it too.”
Fuck you. I can’t speak for everyone but generally, chicks into metal aren’t dumb and we sure as shit don’t pick our music taste based on who sings in their music. Bands like Killswitch might get people into heavier stuff but that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing they appreciate. Even fucking Machine Head have used the dirty-verse/clean-chorus thing and anyone who says they aren’t amazing has shit for brains.
I’m as disappointed in the constant clean vox as anyone but ATR remains one of my favourite bands. Overcome isn’t as good as The Fall Of Ideals but it grows on you.
Also “Am I the only one that thinks the track Two Weeks is complete garbage?”
Honestly? Yeah, probably. Catchy doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.
I too am a huge ATR fan. I’ve listened to the album about six times through. Track 1 and 2 are great. It through me for a loop when I first listened to it. It did not sound like the ATR I know and love. For the most part I like this album, but it just did’nt feel right. Mabey it wil grow on me some more. I’m still glad I bought it.
Ell, so very true.
And Two Weeks kicks ass just as much as Before The Damned, or any other song on the album.
This Darkened Heart is where it’s at. Nothing else comes close to that for them. I really appreciate the slam review. It’s honest and keeps my respect for MS very high. I can be a sucker for mixing clean and heavy vocals (Opeth anyone?) but Phil just isn’t cut out for it. The overproduced sound is unbearable, and not in a metal way.
I agree with what Ell had to say. This album definitely got better the more I listened.
Since I’ve been listening to Fall of Ideals and This Darkened Heart for a long time now, when I heard Overcome, I was surprised by Phil’s use of clean vocals. Right off the bat, Before the Damned, Chiron, and Relinquish sounded pretty good. But songs that took a while to get better were Two Weeks, Days Without, and A Song for the Hopeless. Two Weeks could be played on a mainstream rock station, but still sounds pretty damn catchy, just not like All That Remains. Overall, I think that this album could’ve been stronger if they took out 4 or 5 songs.
This Darkened Heart was their best album, hands down. The Fall of Ideals is #2. Overcome…well i am extremely dissappionted with ATR. Relinquish is my favorite off the album. There was WAY too much singing and not enough screaming. And the sound of the guitars sounds just horrible. It sounds unprofessional. Its not the same ATR from a few years ago…..