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Alesana built a name for themselves as nu-metal bearers on
their debut album On Frail Wings Of Vanity And Wax in 2007.
The band's second offering Where Myth Fades To Legend finds
Alesana going all out in the name of hardcore/power punk blends. Produced
by Steve Evetts and Alesana, the album breaks sound barriers
with blustery chord rotations produced by guitarists Shawn Milke,
Adam Ferguson, and Patrick Thompson. The magnified beats
of bassist Shane Crump and drummer Jeremy Bryan along
with the clenching vocals of singer Dennis Lee supply bales
of melodic and screamo vocals mowing through intervals of bone-crushing
tension showing that Alesana have moved deeper into experiencing metal's
glory.
Alesana's music has the biceps of Killswitch Engage and the
taut strands of Mudvayne. Songs like "This Is Usually
The Part Where People Scream" and "A Most Profound Quiet"
stretch out the band's hardcore muscles, while numbers like "And
They Call This Tragedy" and "Sweetheart, You Are Sadly Mistaken"
are flask in layers of modern rock and power punk shadows with an
overcast of melodic tones. The songs have a thick hard crust that
seems impregnable, but the softness of the piano aria "As You
Wish" features Lee's melodic voicing and Melissa Milke
on harmony vocals for a deeply sensitive moment on the album. The
lyrics vow, "Life is meaningless without you / Love can be such
a beautiful torture / My heart breaks as I long for you / Love can
be such lovely torture / I will climb the hills, draw my sword and
take down / Anyone who tries to stand in front of me / Please know
I'll never run away / Without you in my arms."
Alesana's album isn't for everyone, but it delivers hardcore and
metal in its most glorious forms with razor-sharp cuts and massive
blusters. The music goes in deep where pain thrives. There aren't
many moments in the album that soothe away the scars, but there are
plenty of moments when those scars have a monolithic presence that
refuses to be suppressed. It's an album for those with an iron stomach
and a hard shell to withstand the heat.
-Susan Frances
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