Forever Changed take the cookie cutter emocore sounds of bands like Matchbook Romance and run them into the ground. They are not simply beating a dead horse, but stabbing and shooting it too.

The Need To Feel Alive is just a boring album. The tones, song structure, and riffs have all been done before. Even the album’s artwork seems strangely familiar. The album runs back and forth between typical highly-produced pop-punk/emo and bad mainstream hard rock before closing out with the painful power ballad, “Knowledge.” These guys do know how to play their instruments, they just seem to be having a hard time finding an original voice.

I can’t say this is all unlistenable, as there are some memorable melodies and nicely executed harmonies (thankfully, no random screams in the background), with musical moments that are reminiscent of bands like Hey Mercedes (the opening hook of “The Need To Feel Alive”) or Jimmy Eat World (the chorus of “Romance In Denial”), and lyrics that actually take on other subjects besides girls, but they are just too infrequent for Forever Changed to truly stand out. Instead, the band often comes off sounding mechanical and lifeless like wax dummies of a band that actually rocks.