All That Remains are very much a guilty pleasure of mine, I will admit to liking their material. The Fall of Ideals is a fantastic album, whatever people say. Its the perfect metal core album, combining all the signature elements that make up the genre.  From the soaring vocals talking about some personal issue to the relentless riffing and pitch perfect solos with pristine production. But this was then, unfortunately we now have A War You Cannot Win.

Opening with “Down Through The Ages” we’re greeted with terrible production that lacks any impact, unfortunately this is just the beginning as not much progresses in the album. With arguably the only decent thing about the band being the fast paced drums and guitar to match, Labonte has opted to instead bring his stale, self centered lyrics to the fore and focuses much of the album on boring choruses. Having gone from the excellent, well paced songs on The Fall of Ideals and even Overcome to the terrible “breakdown” I use the term lightly as it doesn’t warrant it on the modestly titled “You Can’t Fill My Shadow” . The only good thing about the album is that Oli Herbert has some great solos, but unfortunately you have to listen to the whinging for a couple of minutes before you’re able to hear the very much underrated guitarist stake his claim. With songs called “Calculating Loneliness” and “Asking Too Much” ATR are bordering on Staind territory.

As much as I wanted to like the album it was really unspectacular, gone were all the hallmarks that made ATR the underdogs of metal core, the double pedal assault was instead replaced with simple snare hits and the occasional blast, even Oli Herbert took a backseat, lets hope that the coming All That Remains will feature more of the band and less of Labonte, plus having a song called “Intro” in the middle of the album… What were they thinking.