Electronicore is a hard genre to prove your worth in. By adopting the techno sound as a staple in your music, you’ve already pissed off legions of metal fans by welding in a generally unfavourable genre into your sound without even demonstrating a single note. It leaves a mountain to climb for approval, but there is some electronicore out there that is simply fantastic, and on that premise it is worth us giving To The Rats and Wolves a whirl.
[tracklist]
1. Suburban Romance
2. Wild At Heart
3. Dead By Dawn
4. Blackout
5. Revolution
6. Roadsick
7. Interlude
8. Schoolyard Warfare
9. Kill The DJ
10. Ghosts
11. Drag Me Down
12. Torn
[/tracklist]
[details]
[record_label]Arising Empire[/record_label]
[release_date]19th February 2016[/release_date]
[/details]
I’ve never quite understood why electronicore has been so popular in Germany. Perhaps it’s the nations party spirit that attributes to it? Bands like Eskimo Callboy, His Statue Falls and We Butter the Bread with Butter have found quite the wave of success by incorporating techno music as the backbone of their metal sound. In fact it’s fair to say at the present moment that Eskimo Callboy might be one of Germany’s most popular offerings at the moment, much to the discontent of the purer metal fans.
I myself don’t have an issue with the genre, as bands such as Enter Shikari and Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas have made the sound extremely technical and pleasingly progressive, and something metal fans crave, a unique edge. But let’s also not forget that there is a lot of awful electronicore out there, therefore making it a very delicate genre. Well then, let’s see how To the Rats and Wolves crack at it!
It’s a decent start to the album in ‘Suburban Romance‘, getting heads moving with the crushing start and slowly introducing the electro into the mix. It’s a promising start that begins to decline when one starts to realise that nothing is particularly creative about ‘Neverland‘. After 3 tracks of disco beats, average use of synths, and no instrumental creativity whatsoever, the album starts to wear out it’s welcome.
It get’s worse when you also realise that a lot of these tracks are blatantly ripping off other artists. Tracks like ‘Blackout‘ not only repeat the hooks of Avicii’s ‘Levels‘, but repeats the lyrical themes of Taio Cruz’s ‘Hangover‘. It’s a real palm in the face moment here, and really does nothing to help electronicore get a place of acceptance in the wide spectrum of metal.
The album finds a bright spot in the track ‘Roadsick‘ that makes more use of metalcore elements with a great guitar-focused build-up to the chorus, but really doesn’t do anything to save the album from despair. The ‘Interlude‘ track sounds like the members screwing around on an old-school Korg Kaos pad before eventually leading into a completely cringing ‘Kill the DJ‘.
As an electronicore listener, I would really like to see the genre evolve into something that can be accepted into metal, but To The Rats and Wolves have really dented the hopes of that happening with this one. It literally puts in the genre into the title of the album, ‘Neverland‘. It just seems that they are taking advantage of Germany’s party band appreciation, and while I’m sure they deliver on a live stage, their music misses the mark by a metric century.
[verdict]No[/verdict]
[why]’Neverland’ looks to ride off the popularity of German electronicore, but the poor use of electronic elements and uncreative approach to the album delivers nothing to the listener. [/why]
