Emo enthusiasts will probably take the title of
A Day to Remember's
And Their Name Was Treason quite literally, as here is yet another young band clearly steeped in that scene, now turning to embrace the seemingly "next" musical trend that is the ever more popular metalcore style. Meanwhile and for their part, metalheads are sure to exclaim: "Not another one!" In either case, like so many of these acts,
A Day to Remember write bite-sized songs that constantly waver back and forth between extremely melodic chorus sections (at times saccharinely so) and depths-of-hell Cookie Monster growling (at times scarily convincing), with almost maddening reliability. That's not to say that they don't uncork the occasional excellent example of the form, such as the power pop-leaning "A Second Glance" or the incredibly heavy "1958." But, these bright spots aside, one can literally predict the band's switches between its hard/soft facets with disturbing accuracy, having never heard the songs before. Even more clichéd, is how the band dresses up the same old, beat-to-death emo subjects of unrequited love and teenage alienation with pseudo-funny ("Casablanca Sucked Anyways") or metallically "tough" titles like "If Looks Could Kill" and "You Should Have Killed Me When You Had the Chance." No comment on the textbook, yawn-inducing acoustic ballad "You Had Me at Hello" (other than perhaps: "how cute"), and even their requisite cult flick quote choice -- from Donnie Darko -- seems a little too obvious. Does all this mean that
And Their Name Was Treason is no good? Not really: it's no better or worse than a thousand emocore albums released during a 12-month span; but it's still but one of thousands, so good luck standing out of the pack. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia