I PREVAIL | Trauma | Album Review

I Prevail has quickly garnered a following in a very short amount of time. What was once seen as just a band that broke out onto the scene from a cover song as perceived by many broke through the woodwork with "Lifelines". That album would go on to be a high-selling album in a time where new bands didn't really achieve much in the way of notice. After much hype surrounding when this band was going to release something to follow up that project, here we are with the band's sophomore studio album "Trauma", a disc that comes after some harrowing events as far as this band goes. For those who don't know, the metalcore/post-hardcore outfit faced a serious lineup change when lead clean singer Brian Burkheiser was struck with a serious vocal debilitation that almost forced him to leave the band in order to recover. It's a miracle whenever band members get over their hardships, especially those that can affect the ability to perform, and this tragedy would be too much for other bands. Within nearly a year, the band got together to craft this album, an album that juggles several different styles of rock and electronic in an attempt to sound unique and make you turn your head and notice it in a good way. Given the circumstances that brought this album to the table, there is a lot of promise riding on "Trauma".

Two singles were simultaneously released for listening in late February of this year in the form of "Bow Down", the opening track, and "Breaking Down", the more radio-friendly single of the two. These songs exhibit the main style that is prevalent on this disc and is what is primarily to be expected. "Bow Down" features more of the heavy side of I Prevail meanwhile "Breaking Down" certainly does feature a prominent hook that could make it do decent business on the Mainstream Rock charts. However, when you break the two songs down, they're actually rather generic and befuddling. "Bow Down" is written poorly with some generic chugging riffs that are way too much of a feature in modern metalcore, and "Breaking Down", while not necessarily bad in any way and does have a decent vocal melody, struggles to have any appeal whatsoever and it is apparent on this song that I Prevail are trying to chase similar trends that other bands have also tested with mediocre results. There is a trap influence in the verses and there are some rap-styled vocals mixed with a good use of vocal modification and pitchshifting here. Rock and metal bands have been doing this lately and it's good to evolve, but this doesn't feel like an evolution. It feels like something unambitious and unfinished, and unfortunately, that is what you'll find on nearly the entirely of this album. 

I will give this album some benefits for the production as it's not handled terribly. There aren't a lot of flaws there even though it does take in a more squeaky clean approach. But, it's the ideas you'll come across on "Trauma" that are not only generic, but at a few points they get difficult to listen to in one sitting. Tracks like "Paranoid", "Rise Above It", and "Low" have vocal melodies that we've heard so many times it's insane, and what makes it worse is that some of these songs just end with no satisfying payoff or buildup in sight. Even the most generic underground bands know how to end a song properly, but with this album here it feels like the band had no time to figure out a way to end the track other than leaving it unfinished. Then, we get to tracks such as "Gasoline" and especially two cuts in particular "DOA" and "Deadweight" and it takes a drastic turn from forgettably bad to insufferably bad. "DOA" commits the awful and abhorrent crime of using the lyrical cliche "six feet deep" in a song about being buried underground all while being the latest in a series of ridiculous songs with awful abbreviated titles that are only purposeful for being used as hashtags, and "Deadweight" is a outright lazy track with lyrics from a reject nu-metal song from 2005/2006 about "seeing right through" someone who is "running their mouth" with horrid samples of crowd cheering that have no purpose. It's awful. In an album where the main theme is trauma as shown in the album title, here we have tracks that are shameful and have no reason of being on this album.

Listening to this album, I found only one major highlight that stood out, that being the song "Hurricane". This is an anomaly on this abysmal album. "Hurricane" has a nice musical idea and a pace that is actually realized and doesn't immediately turn you off thirty seconds into the song. There are some awkward lyrics but there is a bit more honesty in the delivery. There are a few cuts that are OK like "Every Time You Leave" with Delaney Jane and the closer "I Don't Belong Here", but they don't save this album. Even in a majority of albums that have taken this more jumbled route like Bring Me The Horizon's "Amo" and The Plot In You's "Dispose", there were still unique ideas and elements that were just executed in a lesser fashion. They were bad albums, sure, but I could at the very least respect the ambitions. With "Trauma" there is ZERO ambition other than the fact that this was an album birthed from hardship. I think that's the only alluring aspect. If you're making an album inspired by past struggles, there should be an element to it that comes off as engaging or believable or creative, not forceably generic and insipid. And generic and insufferable is what this album is. If you're a fan of this band, you'll probably like this album, but overall if you want better music with quality, there is music out there that is SO much better than this trainwreck. If there is an album that will cause a traumatic listening experience, look no further than this.

RATING: 4/10 

Leave your thoughts about this album in the comments section below. Was this album good or bad? Was it a surprise or a disappointment? All you have to do is type it in. Everybody's opinions matter even if they are different than mine. Scamp4553 will be back with more reviews and content coming your way soon.