Four Year Strong – Rise or Die Trying

I’m at a lost for words as to how I feel about Rise or Die Trying. Every time I listen to it, I come out with another response and opinion regarding the album. Sometimes I like it, I enjoy it and could see it being enjoyable live, sometimes I hate it and want to stop it right away. One thing, however, is constant and that’s that I’m never incredibly impressed with Four Year Strong.

Rise or Die Trying seems to be suffering from an identity crisis; they don’t quite know where they want to go. The music is heavy and angry building up in anticipation for an intense release but then the vocals come in and you’re not sure what to do as it all seems to fall flat. A mix between Fall out Boy and Karate High School, the vocals don’t seem to be the right style for the sound of the band. It’s as if they’re trying to emulate Set Your Goals or Daggermouth – hardcore bands with relatively pop-punk vocal deliveries – but there just isn’t that connection on this album that is so prevalent on the aforementioned bands’ records. Instead, the band comes off as full and disjointed.

There are some positive aspects to the release though. Throughout the entire record, the one thing that really shines through is Jackson Massucco’s drumming. His bass drum is fast and vigorous; it is drumming that would make hardcore acts on Bridge9 proud (see Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Hell for some examples of great drumming). But while the drumming is by far the best thing on the record, you can’t help but feel that Massucco is forced to hold back to make room for the vocals, making it so that the impressive opening sequences seem slightly out of place as they rarely carry on through the entire track.

On top of that, the synthesizer moments do little to the songs other than to further raise the comparison to Karate High School. While you can decipher the melodies, they rarely have any impact on the track and feel somewhat like an after thought the way they are placed in the mix.

So frankly, I don’t know what to say about this record. Nothing on it is abnormally bad, and it is starting to grow on me a little bit; but it still seems to be in need of a much more defined identity instead of attempting to merge everything together as one. Would I see these guys live? Yeah, I think they could be fun, especially if they were playing a show I was already planning on attending. Would I skip over them if they came up on my iPod in random? Probably not – at least not until we pass the half way part of the song anyway. But would I go out of my way to play this record again? I highly doubt it; and I think that little lethargic sentence sums up my feelings for the record quite well.