Fuuuuuck! I don’t know if I just got older or Atreyu just got shitter or if the two events played out together in unison, but I used to really like this band. 2002’s ‘Suicide Notes And Butterfly Kisses’ was a monumental album for me, having been my introduction to the band I was blown away with their seamless melting of hardcore, punk and metal into one cohesive unit, and it’s always stuck in my head as a cool cd.  
 
This is definitely not the case here, after setting opener Doomsday off with an admittedly solid intro, things go downhill fast. The main difference being vocalist Alex Varkatzas’ almost complete abandoning of his scream in favour of a stupid droning shout, every now and then making melodic interjections, presumably to give things a sense of rock n roll attitude, but it doesn’t really work. At all.  Drummer Brandon Saller still chimes in with his melodic singing parts, but without Alex screaming it hardly seems necessary anymore. 
 
Vocals are not the only major change here though, drums have been slowed down, guitars have been tuned down- and their metallic harmonized interplay has been thrown to the dogs. The result is 11 tracks of sterile, lifeless, junk.  
 
There are a couple of standouts however, namely second track Honor, which, while still sounding the same as pretty much every other song on the album, has definitely got some backbone, and hits the new found formula right on the head. The second is Slow Burn, and I really hate to admit that because it basically just sounds like Good Charlotte doing a hardcore song. Something about it just works though, it’s punchy and catchy and of all the attempts made on this disc to change things up and do something new, this is the only song that seems to succeed because it’s confident and comfortable and the music finds its place.