US Metalcore-rs Turn Out Hit And Miss Album
With a name like Fordirelifesake, and song titles like 'The Perfect Way to Cut Myself', you could be forgiven for thinking that this band are emo, so it may come as some surprise that they're metalcore instead. 'A Daydream Disaster' is a bit of a mixed bag of rare and out of print tracks with some good moments, and some rather more uninspiring ones too. One very noticeable thing about this record is that it sometime lacks variation, and after a while it all starts to blend together.
The album starts off promisingly with 'A Four Letter Lie' which, after a brief emo tinged beginning, melds throaty screaming to solid but lovely and intricate melodies. In fact, it's not a million miles away from the earlier Funeral For a Friend stuff particularly 'Escape Artists Never Die', not that this is a bad thing. And, with a song simply entitled 'Acoustic Instrumental' that's about as far from metalcore as you're going to get, Fordirelifesake at least show that they can do different styles.
Perhaps sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the fact that these songs were never written expressly as part of an album, rather pulled from many different places, but even so it lacks some sort of balance. There are tracks on there which sound different and more experimental, be it from collaborations with other bands or just different styles of vocals, and these all seem to be bunched together. At times, you're just left wishing there was some straight up screaming.
Take the 8 minutes plus opus of 'She Loves Me Not', a technically accomplished track with some neat ideas behind it and awesome drumming. But, for all the technicality and great ideas, that still doesn't stop it from feeling like the band tried to cram too much in, as if there are several songs in one. It follows the basic metalcore route, but it speeds up and slows down for no apparent reason too much to give it any real coherence. Tracks 5 and 6 sound far too much like each other for comfort, no matter how many times you play them. There seem to be the same melodies, grunted screaming and structure on both, and it's hard to get around this fact.
Then again, there are some stand out tracks on the album. 'Falling for the Promise' is one of these, and it's faster, heavier yet melodic - heart wrenching even. There's passion here, rather than the solid, more unexciting songs that went before. 'Sweet, We Forgot to Name our Cover Song' and 'We Burn in our Own Comfort', too, are both well worth several listens. Alongside the screaming on both songs is actually some passionate singing and some of the best melodic riffs on the whole album. Given that 'Sweet, We Forgot to Name Our Cover Song' is actually several Wafflehouse songs welded together, it's impossible to tell.
For a disparate collection of songs, 'A Daydream Disaster' is a decent effort. Fans of metalcore will probably love this, and it may well still justify a place in somebody's record collection.