Band : Atreyu
Album Title : Congregation Of The Damned
Label : Roadrunner Records
Distribution : CNR – Concreteweb Promotion Office
Release date : 26/10/2009
Review : CD

“Congregation Of The Damned” is the fifth studio album of the Californian metalcore band Atreyu, although metalcore might not be the right description anymore after hearing the two last albums of Atreyu, “Lead Sails Paper Anchor” (2007) and the follow-up “Congregation Of The Damned”. In the course of their ten year career, Atreyu have developed their sound from furious metalcore with raw screaming vocals from singer Alex Varkatzas combined with the more melodic vocals by drummer/singer Brandon Saller (e.g. the albums “Suicide Notes And Butterfly Kisses“, “The Curse”, “A Death-Grip On Yesterday”) into a softer emo sound with more clean vocals (e.g. the album “Lead Sails Paper Anchor”).

And now with this new album, they describe it themselves as a mix of everything they’ve ever done. On the one hand, it’s a return to their hardcore roots and on the other hand, the new songs contain more clean vocals than ever before. Maybe Atreyu are trying to maintain their old school metalcore fans -who accused the band of selling out- and at the same time they are also trying to please a new generation of fans, who appreciated “Lead Sails Paper Anchor” –an album more tuneful and experimental than all it’s predecessors and also an album that established more success. I wonder what the die hard Atreyu fans will think of the piano ballad “Wait For You”; to me this song sounds like the hard rock band Hinder. In my humble opinion, I must say that the musical ambiguity of Atreyu is captivating and for me the variation between hard parts and melodic parts works well. “Congregation Of The Damned” contains 13 songs and has a playing time of 49 minutes. Highlights of the album are “Bleeding Is A Luxury”, the title track “Congregation Of The Damned”, “Black Days Begin”, the first single “Storm To Pass”, “Insatiable”, “So Wrong” and “Lonely”.

Up to now, Atreyu haven’t confirmed tour dates for 2010, but my guess is that they will probably play at the summer festivals like Graspop for instance.

75/100

Erik.