KILLSWITCH ENGAGE: Killswitch Engage

Produced by Brendan O'Brien and Adam Dutkiewicz

Released: June 30, 2009

Killswitch Engage virtually pioneered commercial metalcore and have consistently led the way ever since. They've been able to do this by gradually tempering their sound toward mass acceptance with each new release. While they haven't fallen as from the tree as In Flames (whose path from greatness to sheer blandness makes Metallica's mid-career shift look like a mere swerve) Killswitch Engage's second eponymous album is their most accessible yet, about as far from the inferno of rage that was 2002's Alive or Just Breathing as they can get and still be recognisable as the same band.

The first four tracks set the tone for the whole album. "Never Again" is the aggressive, guitar-fuelled opener in which KsE wants to show their older fans that they can still be a heavy band. But they then switch straight to emo mode for "Starting Over", a teenage heartbreaker written with airplay in mind. You can just picture some dude with a fringe getting all teary over this one as he remembers the time he dumped for the guy with the Dimebag tatt. Following that is "The Forgotten", where the band plays the heavy card again, this time with some pretty convincing (if fleeting) old-school thrash moments and Howard Jones really bringing back the hardcore rasp. "Reckoning" then is the totally generic pissed off metalcore song that every band KsE has influenced in the past seven years has done. For KsE themselves to be still doing this, and no better than anyone else, is the real measure of this album.

Because, essentially, Killswitch Engage is just those four songs, redone in slightly different ways enough times to fill up a 40-minute playing time. Some of the tracks are heavy and angry (but not too heavy), and others are more melodic and angsty; sometimes Jones screams more than he sings, and sometimes he sings more than he screams. Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel mimic classic Murray/Smith guitar harmonies but steadfastly refuse to bust out into real soloing because everyone knows nothing breaks a kid's concentration on the mosh more than a guitar solo, and lyrically they're trapped in the silly twilight world of adolescent angst. Like Twilight, actually, but for guys. Who wear eyeliner.

The songwriting hasn't really changed much from where they were with As Daylight Dies three years ago but if anything Brendan O'Brien's production has highlighted the commercial aspects even more. It's immaculately done, but in the end it's just mosh-friendly metalcore by numbers, which means that KsE now don't sound any different to any of the bands who've been ripping them off for the past five years. Hopefully, the upcoming Shadows Fall release will hand these guys their arses on a plate.

1. Never Again
2. Starting Over
3. The Forgotten
4. Reckoning
5. The Return
6. A Light in a Darkened World
7. Take Me Away
8. I Would Do Anything
9. Save Me
10. Lost
11. This is Goodbye

Rating: 68%