Your Memorial – Atonement
Your Memorial – Atonement CD (Facedown Records)
The second release from Your Memorial is hearty slab of reference to bands found on more mainstream metal labels over the past ten years. It is clear these boys from Minnesota have record collections that will be the envy of many a sweaty-palmed teenage boy, carefully cultivating a knowledge of metalcore and all sub-genres that have spawned from the grasps of Fear Factory, Meshuggah, Lamb of God.
All expectations and prejudices of the record can be met with opener, “Endeavor For Purpose”, hitting the metalcore mark at every turn, included the dreaded break-down. It may not have been over done on this record, but it has certainly been done to destruction that it no longer feels fresh and challenging no matter how it gets packaged by newcomers.
Yet that is what Your Memorial are; newcomers to a style of metal that should have seen its day about a year after it started. What is clear is that should Your Memorial have taken a different direction with this release, then perhaps the underlying skills within the band would have been better served. However, this is the style they have chosen to portray their art and it is on this they are judged.
If you a partial to a bit of screamo, with melodic solos that are punctuated by double bass drum pummelling, then you’d be at home with Atonement. Ground breaking it is not, but serving their fans, it does so whole-heartedly. Fiona Brennan
