Beloved

Item: Failure On
Author: Ryan Little

Failure On

(2003)

Reviewed by Ryan Little

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Solid State RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

emo hardcore melodic hardcore post-hardcore

Do heavy melodic guitars, a pounding double-kick beat, and the perfect mix of modern-rock singing and hardcore screaming vocals sound familiar? Maybe that's because they are. The physical description of Beloved's music looks identical to the likes of Further Seems Forever, Dead Poetic, Underoath, and newer Blindside-type bands. This emo-screamo melodic hardcore-type music is most definitely up and coming.

However, as similar as Beloved may be to these bands in words, the audio experience is completely unique. These guys are no cookie-cutter band. A musical group with three beautifully intertwined guitars, an awesome bassist, and a drummer/second vocalist is all but unheard of. I've seen two-guitarist bands, but three is incredible. Their use of harmonics, slides, palm-muting, and other guitar techniques makes for the perfect combo of beauty and ferocity. Vocally, passionate is the only word for what you hear, be it singing or screaming.

Like all Solidstate bands, their live show is rumored to be worth the money; their CD certainly is. Messagewise, they deal with struggle, hypocrisy, moral relativism, and eternity. Track numbers one, six, and ten are good examples of this. The lyrical approach is very poetic and interpretive, but at the end of the "thank you" section inherent on most any CD, they blatantly plead with the reader/listener to think "beyond what [you] know" about death and eternity. In that way, they come across just strong enough with the message that any Christian in any band of any kind is called to portray, namely, the Gospel message. That more than anything else is what makes this such a good CD.

5 tocks