Escape The Fate – Self titled

In my CD rack to my immediate left, I have the first two Escape The Fate CDS. They’re sitting there, amongst all my other CDS that start with the letter “e” (yes, my CDs are organized alphabetically, I’m just that cool) and yet I don’t remember what they sound like. I remember not liking them but other than that, it’s pretty much all blank when it comes to Escape the Fate.

So going into their third album, and major label debut, I didn’t know what to expect but I assumed I wouldn’t like it. One thing’s for sure: what I got is not what I expected but I still don’t like it.

The self-titled album starts off with a long and boring introduction. Soft, eerie melodies float through for a minute and a half like I Am Ghost. It’s a decent introduction but long and pointless nonetheless. When they finally break into a real song – Massacre – it seems that Escape The Fate don’t quite know what style to go with. It starts with a big rock vibe with heavy breakdowns and constant drumming but then it throws in melodic vocals ala Fearless Records crop, computerize voice-effects flood the track as do synth melodies. I wouldn’t have liked it had they kept to the generic rock sound (a mixture of metalcore and eighties rock with elements of Bring Me The Horizon) but I could have at least handled it. But throwing in all these styles and pointless breakdowns kills the flow of the song and when they keep doing it, kills the flow of the album.

They have hard songs, they have slow songs and they even have Linkin Park sounding songs  (seriously, Lost in Darkness sounds like a horrible Linkin Park b-side but a Linkin Park song nonetheless) but other than the production value and overall dark tone, there’s little unifying them. There’s eletronics effects on almost every song, the vocals alternate from smooth to guttural groans randomly and have nothing unique to them, the lyrics are laughable (Come on, come on, shake your money maker. Take, take your time, do it right tonight. Double down another round) and there’s really nothing hear that makes you want to take notice. The only upside is that maybe, just maybe, the fact that they don’t scream constantly and have some decent guitar riffs (the breakdown in Prepare Your Weapon is pretty good)  may make them accessible to a wider audience but that’s still not saying much.

Really, Self-Titled albums are supposed to show the world who you are, Escape The Fate’s self-titled album is a forgettable combination of other band’s styles and sounds – be it Linkin Park’s vocal delivery, Bring Me The Horizon’s guitar work, Avenged Sevenfold’s overall vibe and feel – nothing on it screams Escape The Fate.

I’m sure that when they next release an album, I’ll look up to the left and see three Escape The Fate CDs sitting there and, once again, not be able to remember anything about them.