A great deal of today’s biggest metalcore fans consider the 2000s to the 2010s the golden years of the genre. Bands such as Michigan-based For The Fallen Dreams who have continued on since the MySpace era help to maintain the style’s raw spirit with their ever-evolving nu-metal twists – and their new self-titled album (Arising Empire) is no exception.

 

Kicking off with ‘Reanimate’, the song begins with an alien-like voice that drops into the first brutally sustained scream of the album over a wall of classic metalcore riffage. The variety of vocal styles is immediately utilized as rapping suddenly turns to screaming while maintaining the hip-hop flow over a heavy bass groove. Clean vocals take over for the anthemic chorus, and then they throw in some spoken word vocal fry for good measure.

 

A slew of pounding drum fills takes center stage for the build-up into the bridge. Their use of lo-fi guitar dissonance and glitchy vocal clips to play up the racing beats even further (rather than the usual practice of drums accentuating the guitar and vocals) is the perfect cherry on top for this opener.

 

‘No Heaven’ and ‘Sulfate’ feature back-to-back electrifying guitar solos in varied contexts. While the former’s solo beautifully enhances the vigorous melodies surrounding it, the latter offers an emotional segue into the track’s bellowing climax. The peculiar ‘Lavender’ follows with an unsettling electronic beat alongside vocal fry and whispers that grow more agitated as the verse goes on. Its slow increase in aggression shakes with anticipation until finally dropping into the gritty chorus belts, and the clever rhythmic flow of the screamed bridge makes the pay-off all the more satisfying.

 

Songs like ‘Testify’ and ‘Searching…’ unleash the band’s fullest potential in rap metal. As they each follow the “rapped verse, towering chorus melody, blustering breakdown” formula, they may have stood out stronger and more spread out in the tracklist. They do, however, each have their own unique highlights such as the high notes of the striking ‘Testify’ hook and the earth-shattering ‘Searching…’ outro.

 

The closing track ‘Chemicals’ wraps up the record nicely, with its moving call-and-response chants, titanic chugging, breakneck drums, and subtle twinkling ambience.

 

Now seven albums deep into their career, For The Fallen Dreams still haven’t lost the spark that catapulted them into the scene fifteen years ago. Even in a time when combining opposing genres has become the norm, they prove to be some of the best at it with their timeless development and apt restraint from pushing themselves too far.

 

Buy the album here:

https://arisingempire.com/forthefallendreams

 

7 / 10

COLLEEN KANOWSKY