Search - Attack! Attack! :: Someday Came Suddenly

You had to have "scene" this coming...

Donovanonfire | From The D | 07/30/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"As a fan of many genres, including my beloved post-hardcore (screamo to some) I listened to Attack Attack because I was told they were the worst abomination to come out of the ageing hardcore scene in a long while. I was intrigued at the potential awfullness, and upon finishing Someday Came Suddenly, I would have to agree; this is really, really bad. Calling Attack Attack's sound as music is a stretch. The entire album is one long, screaming breakdown mixed in with some boring techno, autotuned vocals, and cliched christian lyrics. I can't believe it takes 6 men to create this! No songs have any structure, or are intelligently written. But to be honest it had to come to this. So many bands are riding the post-hardcore scene wave and trying to cross genres by apeing it's sound and popularity that it was only a matter of time before a band like them would come around. Instead of progressing the post-hardcore sound by building on it's merits, this album is more of a degression. It's simplistic to the point of being insulting. This band may sell records to kids, but no person over 18 could possibly see this as good music. This is just as bad as the Hollywood Undead/Brokencyde whatever-core bands that plauge the genre I so dearly love, and give any music with screaming a bad name.



Garbage."

I Don't Even Know Why Bands Should Try Anymore.

Mike | Here and There | 06/17/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Wow. I heard these guys and I realized that with a few easy steps (and a whole lot of money) anyone can produce and release a ready-made album that they'll expect people to eat up like candy:



Step 1: Name your band after something you think sounds cool. Nevermind that the band's name is already in use by another band. As long as you think it's cool, it's yours.



Step 2. Make sure the production value masks the fact that the guys in the band can't play their instruments. Trigger the drums, make sure the guitars are "extra crunchy", and please make sure there's plenty of auto-tune on the vocals, because God forbid people actually learn to sing nowadays.



Step 3. To compose songs, take some mean sounding "chugga chugga" riffs that were played out when Atreyu was doing it earlier this decade, throw in some of the typical "I'm-hurt-and-brooding" pseudo-emo vocals, and have some carnival-techno playing whenever you run out of the first two ingredients. Song structure is irrelevant as long as you got "the hook" somewhere in the song. While you're at it, make sure you name the songs after either pop-culture references or day-to-day observations because that's cool!



Step 4. Take everything Buddyhead claims is cool and run 15 miles with it. Make sure you've all got jet black hair that's combed in front of your face, make sure you've got plenty of tats, and play those guitars waaaaaay low. You look so frightening and dark; just like everyone else in your scene.



I wish I could have a rosier opinion of this group, but these guys are the prime example of people who do music to tell people they're signed and in a band as opposed to having a voice that's worth hearing. This is as generic as they come and I'm not a fan."

Attack Attack: The Limp Bizkit of "Core"

The Jotun | New Jersey, USA | 12/20/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"And so we come to the end of a decade. Needless to say, it was an interesting and eventful one, and in the world of metal music this was no exception. Despite a surge of major mainstream popularity in the first few years of the decade, the bane of the 90's - nu metal, is now long gone in all but the most isolated corners of middle America. Since around 2003/2004, we have watched the development of another mainstream cash in - metalcore. Now to be perfectly honest, when metalcore started off, it was fairly tolerable. Bands like Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, and Unearth, while not having particularly groundbreaking of interesting sounds (think simplified Gothenburg meets breakdowns, with some thrash in there to boot), at least had a respectable level of musicality and melody. Even the middle part of the decade when more mainstream and less talented bands like Atreyu and Trivium began to dominate, there was still a clear distinction between the "metal" and the "core".



Then the scene kids tried to infiltrate our territory more craftily. In 2005, a certain band known as Job For A Cowboy broke out of the then-new MySpace music circuit. While the subgenre known as deathcore had existed a few years prior (bands like Despised Icon and All Shall Perish), JFAC were decidedly more mainstream than these bands - more breakdowns, simpler riffs, and the now dime a dozen "pig squeal" vocals were put up front, and scene kids who probably still hadn't gotten over Fall Out Boy jumped all over it. Hardcore dancing and fringe haircuts began to show up at metal shows, and some more popular metal bands like Children of Bodom and In Flames even began to cash in on this new audience. Later things got even worse, with newer and even less talented bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Suicide Silence, and Emmure entering the mainstream metal conscious - despite receiving waves of well deserved criticisms. And in 2008, when Cryptopsy, once one of the greatest purveyors of extreme death metal, cashed in on the genre with their album "The Unspoken King", it was clear that this new enemy had really taken a grip on metal, which still has yet to be completely loosened (though, like nu metal, inevitably will be).



As 2010 approaches, we look in retrospect at a "core" band that broke out probably to a greater extent than any other in the past year, Attack Attack!. Now being completely fair, Attack Attack! are not entirely unoriginal. Unlike their peers, they utilize autotune clean vocals and techno influenced keyboards. Despite this, Attack Attack have actually succeeded in being EVEN WORSE than their predecessors. In all seriousness, I would gladly take BMTH over Attack Attack. The vocals, both harsh and autotune, are atrocious - with the screaming being the most tripe, high pitched and downright irritating screamo stylings, while the autotune is just plain annoying. The guitars are absolutely atrocious - NOTHING but breakdowns and those irritating as hell minor 2nd diads, and some octaves during melodic parts. The bass is inaudible, and the drum fills are weak and unoriginal, without even a hint of technicality (which is usually the only saving grace in a deathcore band). The only member of the band who is even remotely talented is the keyboardist (who himself pales in comparison to greats such as Jordan Rudess and Janne Warmen). The songs have no transition at all, just a bunch of breakdowns and choruses poorly strung together into a "song". And don't even get me started on the whole "crabcore" shtick...



In short, Attack Attack show the metalcore trend reaching an absolute low. The only band I can think of that is any worse is Brokencyde, who I seriously doubt take themselves seriously. Attack Attack in many ways parallel the most infamous and hated purveyors of nu metal - Limp Bizkit. Both bands represent everything that was wrong with their genre, gained widespread mainstream popularity for a short time and were mocked for their imagery. Limp Bizkit ended up killing themselves and taking their entire genre down with them, and in the next few years, I think it's safe to say Attack Attack will do the same. Hell, with the incredibly negative press response they've been getting (not to mention this being one of 6 1 star reviews for this album out of a total of 14), their already on their way..."