Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
At times it feels as though there has been a large glass ceiling put between what has happened before and the 21st Century bands trying to break through and at least assert some measure of modern day experience and the seeking of truth in every music genre across the board.
Blues, Folk and Country seem to have chipped away with pick axes and pneumatic drills and the small trickle of 21st Century bands and artist’s making their way through the barrier has at least become the start of flood in these three musical areas. For some reason the world of Metal seems not only stubborn but almost dogmatic, especially in America and to some extent in Britain, to never want to leave the comfortable behind; to never look to far forward in case they lose sight of the glorious past that for many the pedestal will never be high enough.
Whether this is down to the older fans still hanging, as is their right, with grim fascination to the days in which in Metal was the absolute king of all it surveyed or just that the fact that the big four of American Metal and all the ones who were tantalisingly so close to being the next big thing. All still have lyrics to write that mean something is for debate but for what it does to bands like We Came As Romans and their eponymous titled third album is something that will always need discussing.
It is a shame that is thus and perhaps will be for some time yet but as tracks from the album such as the opener Regenerate, The World I Used to Know, Saviour of the Week and Flatline suggest, the new breed do deserve a chance to be heard without the comparisons being made and the starry eyed glaze of decades past being shoved down their throats at every turn and in the album, it has to be said, that the music is infectious and filled with the hint of danger that make it such a find.
The music is enthusiastically appreciated as ever, the band’s core belief intact and as close to a religious fervour that a Metalcore group would arguably ever allow; for We Came As Romans, the new self-titled album is one that is rich in flavour and one that doesn’t skirt the issue of where American Metal goes next.
In a world in which the true hard core still seems to be playing in its abundant past via the likes of Slayer, Megadeth or Metallica or having been usurped by the very impressive bands coming out of the Scandinavian region, We Came As Romans re-inserts a portion of belief that all is well across the large and at times lonely ocean.
Ian D. Hall