IN HEARTS WAKE | Ark | Album Review

If you recall, or if you've been reading my reviews for a while, you know that we just covered the new Northlane disc with the title of "Mesmer" and gave it an extremely positive review, stating that it was possibly one of the best albums of the year. Now, in this review, we're going to be discussing another metalcore band from the Australia area that has some pretty good potential to become a well-acclaimed band and that is In Hearts Wake with their new album "Ark", and in fact I discovered this band due to the fact that this is a band that is heavily associated with Northlane, in fact doing a split single with them last year entitled "Equinox". Unlike Northlane which carries a lot more djent elements and focuses a lot on experimentation even with their most simplest tracks, In Hearts Wake is definitely metalcore, as can be heard throughout past albums such as "Skydancer" and "Earthwalker". They do have the breakdowns and the rough unclean vocals and the dropped seven-string guitars that many bands in this genre do, but In Hearts Wake also seems to be one step ahead of all of the rest that perform in this style, as their breakdowns feel very engaging to listen to and don't feel like a lost cause. They are also an environemtalist band, meaning that their lyrical content revolves around certain aspects of nature among other social issues like racism and such. 

Here on this album, you do get all of those traits as well as the lyrical themes of enviromentalism juxtaposed into the sound of the album, but also this album seems to be a little bit different than their past work. This album has a lot of melodic values that are the base of some of the tracks, and you hear a lot more clean singing coming from the singer of the band Kyle Erich while letting the unclean vocalist Jake Taylor have his role, but overall the singing seems to come in a lot more on this effort to fit in with the melodious side of the album. And honestly, this is an album that shows much more charisma in the unclean vocals, because the singing vocals are just OK. There are definitely moments where they work perfectly with the tone of the song, but overall, there's nothing that special or alluring about the singing on this album. Now, you may think that because I'm already offering some critique and not much positive comments that this album is a total bomb, but truth be told this album is really just an OK mixture of styles, and there are definitely a slew of great things about the record that it has going for it, but also some thing where it doesn't have much. 

For one, the track that opens up this album, "Passage", is fantastic. That's after the self-titled introductory track that bleeds into this song, which features a great riff throughout the verses as well as excellent choruses that feel like they're inspired and have a lot of energy and kinesis to them, and this is one of the tracks on this album that shows the band at their best along with a track like "Frequency" or "Nomad", and both of these tracks are very good, especially "Frequency" because it has all of the characteristics that make the opening track "Passage" work so well, and it definitely shows that In Hearts Wake are a band with a lot of promise and are not one of those faces in the sea that will potentially fade out a couple of years from now. But, right after that, the disc slows down as far as pace goes and starts feeling mediocre. Now, nothing on the album ever gets unlistenable or even just bad or worthless, but you would expect with a band that has a concept in mind for their material to go on and some energy to utilize that each album would be an equally fantastic listen, or at least would pull you in with its songwriting and its musicianship, and this isn't exactly the best album for executing that. 

There is one good song on the second half of the album and that is "Overthrow" where they do ascend up the staircase with ease, but really anything else throughout this portion of the disc is forgettable and honestly a little bit run-of-the-mill sounding. There's one example of this in the song "Waterborne" where they try to put in some atmosphere with the lyricism that they're showcasing as well as toning things back a little bit more, but it seems like this is what everyone else is doing in this scene, and it doesn't really pull you in frequently and only in parts. Tracks like "Arrow", "Flow", and "Elemental" are ones that go by pretty fast and even though there is an understanding of what this band wanted to accomplish with these tracks by providing sort of a similar calmness or tranquility on the musical front, but these tracks sound too much like one another and once again, there's no appeal to these tracks to intentionally desire to listen to them again after the playback is finished. And finally, you have the closing track "Now", which really should've been just an instrumental closer. I don't really think these vocals were necessary because they don't work here, especially since the singer in this band only does well on certain parts of the album, not all of the way through. 

So, overall, is this a disappointing album? It sort of is. But, this album is nowhere near one of the worst albums I have heard and it's definitely not a bad album by any stretch of imagination. I will say that this album really should've had more character as seen on tracks like "Passage" and "Frequency", because those two definitely hit it out of the park for me. The other stuff is, again, just OK for metalcore. The best way I could recommend this album is to judge for yourself because I can see many people liking this disc for the fact that they take their usual song topics so to heart, and the fact that it does try to diversify. However, for me, this is one that is not their best album. I feel like "Skydancer" and even their first album "Divination" were much more focused albums that had stronger material to boast than this. I still do see promise going into this band's next album as they still have the potential to floor me like their fellow band Northlane did back in 2015 with their latest album at the time "Node". It's still a disc that I recommend to fans of this style of music and to people looking for environmentalist topics within heavy music. So, go ahead and eat this one up. 

RATING: 6/10 

What did you think about the record? Was it good? Was it bad? Let me know in the comments below. And of course, these are only my opinions. If your opinions are different, awesome! If they're similar, then that's great, too. So, don't hesitate- comment to me about it down below. Take care.