The World Alive – Deceiver

When I first saw The World Alive’s debut EP, Empire, I was surprised. It was unlike anything Fearless had put out recently, the artwork was intricate and impressive and the heavy metalcore EP showed potential despite it not being my style.

For the last year and a bit, they’ve stayed in my memory banks because of that surprising introduction. Sadly, they lost that surprising element now and Deceiver came through exactly as I expected – although this time they toned down the artwork and given the album a rather generic and forgettable front cover. 

Deceiver picks up where Empire left off:  the record is a heavy metalcore album. Low, guttural screams penetrate the tracks, punctuated by a never ending barrage of double bass kicks. It’s a technically proficient album, with lightning fast riffs that bring up visions of Protest The Hero (particularly on the opener The Hounds of Anubis). This heavy onslaught sounds like Bring Me The Horizon but with a fuller production value.

However, just like their EP – they constantly throw in melodic and smooth vocals in the mix; making for the occasional gang vocal and sing-along portion that require the band to tone their volume and slow it down ever so slightly. This adds some needed variety but often doesn’t fit the sound properly. An odd moment here and there and it works, but they do it too often that it just feels forced. Take Consider It Mutual; a song that pretty much leaves all the metal elements of their sound behind and instead deliver a song that is nearly all melodic vocals. This just sounds out of place – if it wasn’t for the never ending double bass kicks you wouldn’t know it was the same band for close to half the track. Instead, it’s just like every other overly polished nu-emo band.

And ultimately, it all seems kind of generic. While I am by no means an expert in the metalcore genre – it tends to be a style I avoid – The World Alive have failed to add anything new to the sound that I haven’t heard before; and haven’t been able to entice me to the metalcore fold.

Deceiver, like its cover art, is generic and eventually forgettable. Yes, there are flashes of intense musicianship but they throw in too many clichés that it becomes forgettable.  The band had promise on their EP – and they’ve built on it a bit here but it still falls short; and I can’t help but think that the only reason Empire really stood out in the first place was because I wasn’t expecting it to sound the way it did. Now I know what to expect and they failed to push the boundaries.