Album Review: Wage War – Pressure

We music fans love a Drop D-tuned, breakdown-spattered tune with an anthemic chorus. The success of bands like The Amity Affliction, I Prevail and In Hearts Wake are textbook examples of simple slams for the masses.

Wage War were clearly aware of this when they sat down to pen Pressure, the third offering from the mosh lords, which promises to please plenty and take no risks in the process.

To be fair, despite the mundane, well-trodden metalcore of album opener Who I Am, cuts Prison and Fury have moments of fun, thanks to their enormous riffage, and despite the predictability of the songs. The Line, too, shows off this band at their energetic and creative best, with frontman Briton Bond and clean singer Cody Quistad combining wonderfully over some dark synth textures, not dissimilar to Japanese spacecore act Crossfaith.

Unfortunately however, a majority of this record is the same old karate-kicking soundtrack that’s been floating around skate parks since 2005, with cuts Grave, Me Against Myself and the ironically titled Forget My Name melding into one big emo singalong that feels like a dreary reciting of a poorly written script.