Waking Kills The Dream Depending On Tomorrow (2002) Goodlife

Well, this band is the total package. They give you the cheese and the whine. This band pretty much takes every cliche imaginable about emotional metalcore and compresses them into one neat little package called "Depending On Tomorrow". Borrowing heavily from Poison The Well, Evergreen Terrace and other similar acts, Waking Kills The Dream doesn't offer anything new or all that entertaining. This isn't throw away material, but it certainly won't be seeing much, if any rotation in my CD player anytime soon. These guys feature two singers, I'm guessing(because nowhere in the liner notes does it tell you)that one is used for screaming and the other is used for singing. The screamed vocals are ok, nothing special, but they do nothing to take away from the album. But the sung vocals just grate on me. He seems to be trying too hard to sound heartbroken and it just ends up coming off sounding forced. These vocals are almost a distraction from the songs, that's not something I'd call a enviable quality.

The music is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a band like this. You get heavier parts that later go into mellower parts. There's even the obligatory soft guitar passage complete with distant spoken word vocals thrown in from time to time. Don't get me wrong though, because it's not all bad. The guitar playing on here can be pretty creative when they decide that they want to color outside the lines. Unfortunately, those occasions are few and far between. I know one of their guitar players spent some time in Poison the Well, but they could be a little more original.

The lyrics are also not a far departure from other bands playing this style. Here's an example from the song "Chasing Angels":

"she had the eyes of an angel
and the wings to match
strip away my failing form
raise me to your height
with eyes to eyes
and hands to hands
raise me to your height
with three words into one
feathers from upon her back
catch the winds of clouds
leave the earth's sad spin below"

You'd think these guys could've spent a little less time feigning deepness and heartache, and you know, taken that time to write some decent lyrics.

Listening to this CD is alot like driving down a familiar road by your house after a bad winter. Although you know every twist and turn, the potholes and bumps in road make for a substantially less enjoyable ride. If you're a big fan of Poison the Well and Evergreen Terrace and you just can't get enough of this genre, you might want to check these guys out. Otherwise, I suggest that we just wait to see if this band can develop past this current dull stage.

(FortyMinutesWest)