Aiden – Conviction

Aiden has always been an interesting band for me. I mean, they’ve gotten more flack for just being Aiden than they get for their music. I can’t, however, really fault all the naysayers, I know I’ve flogged that dead horse as well; but for me, it was always disappointing when I called them the stereotypical emo output because I actually liked them. Their debut, Our Gangs Dark Oath, was impressive, heavy and energetic and I was looking forward to hearing more from them. Then came their first big release, Nightmare Anatomy which, for most accounts, was fairly bland. A few good tracks (Die Romantic being the most memorable) but just wanna be AFI for the most part – a disappointment release but not horrible. Their DVD/EP combo Rain In Hell however just threw me over the edge. The EP wasn’t terrible, but God-damn that DVD annoyed the living hell out of me as every single second of it featured the band portraying their stereotypical emo persona and it was just blatantly annoying. Still, that’s just flogging them based on their look and their persona rather than their music; with Conviction, the band has taken yet another step backwards and released a CD actually worthy of the flack it will receive.

Gone is the energy that saved their former releases. Gone is the chaos and distortion. Gone, even, are the screams. Instead Conviction is flat, mellow and piano driven giving it a very monotonous and lack luster feel. Nightmare Anatomy was Aiden trying to be AFI, Conviction sees them building on that while leaning heavily on influences from The Cure and Joy Division. This takes them away from the Underoathesque screamo of Our Gangs Dark Oath to a generic goth-emo/punk sound and an album almost completely filled of filler. The vocals are no longer intense and angry but pepper softly on top of the music. The piano is used as the backbone of the melody instead of the guitar and there’s so much high-hat use on the record that it, at times, sounds almost electronic.

The Opening Departure is a decent vocal-and-piano introduction but that momentum seems to carry on way too much into the record as it seems to become a template for the record rather then slowly introducing the listener to a more intense sound. Believe sees them scraping for the AFI similarity again with the chorus of background vocals. Darkness is a cheap attempt at My Chemical Romance whileShe Will Love You leans on a U2 guitar influence. Other tracks like Moment, One Love or The Sky Is Falling are decent but too mellow and soft to really capture the listener and become forgettable filler. The only song that really captures the intensity the band used to have is Son Of Lies as that’s the sole song that has any sort of volume, any passion in the vocals and the only one with a smidgen of screams.

Once again, Conviction isn’t absolutely terrible, but man is it bland. At least their last two releases had a few songs (Die Romantic and Die,Die,Die My Darling) that were memorable even after not listening to the record for quite some time. Conviction doesn’t have a single song like that and will not be remembered for anything other than the good artwork.

Really, The question I continually find myself asking is this: how can this be the same band that spat out I Set My Friends On Fire three years ago? That song had balls to it, these songs are just generic filler.