Texas-based metalcore outfit
Memphis May Fire get serious on their second full-length and debut for new label Rise Records. The excessively smart-assed song titles of their self-titled album are gone, replaced with simple nouns ("The Sinner," "The Abandoned," "The Deceived," "The Burden"). The music has undergone an evolution as well, keeping pace with trends in the hoodies-and-neck-tattoos scene the band calls home -- the new songs feature dashes of Auto-Tuned singing in addition to the guttural growls and hoarse screams, and some tracks feature drum programming and synth melodies seemingly more aimed at the dancefloor than the mosh pit. Computer-generated string patches, reminiscent of (if not sampled from)
Daft Punk's soundtrack to Tron: Legacy, add drama to "The Unfaithful." The lyrics ache with earnestness, hinting at Christianity without going all-out (no need to alienate one market segment while embracing others, after all). The songs demonstrate more ambition than some of their peers have mustered -- "The Abandoned" is genuinely epic, a mini-symphony of breakdowns, noisy keyboard surges, agonized singing/screaming, and an epic, lighters-in-the-air chorus. Ultimately, though, the tracks and
Memphis May Fire themselves are the sum of their parts and little more; like many young bands, they haven't learned yet that writing a bunch of parts isn't the same thing as writing a song. ~ Phil Freeman