The Assistant - We'll Make the Roads By Walking (Cover Artwork)
Staff Review

The Assistant

We'll Make the Roads By Walking (2003)

Alone


I have to say, as soon as I read the song titles of this band, I was expecting the worst. With such killers as "be nice to me, i had a ruff day," and "too bad spiderman doesn't exist becasue there really is a green goblin," I was sure this band was bound for suckdom. But as, this review might tell you, I was duly impressed.

Aside from having crappy song titles, I noticed that the lyrics all had full page explanations for each one. I thought this silly, but Scott Punknews assured me that it was perfectly normal for a posicore band. Well I was shocked. I had never heard of posicore before! If you haven't figured it out, posi is short for positive, as in emo=emotional. What I also noticed as I was reading that lyrics, was that they weren't half bad. All songs had a positive image, and were decently written with a hopeful attitude.

Then came the test. Even if a band has decent lyrics, the music itself might be the shittiest thing ever written. But I was blown away. Not metaphorically as in them being the best I'd ever heard, but physically blown from the speakers. This is one of the hardest hitting bands I have heard in awhile, and I was amazed at how not suckey it was. But I wasn't sold until I heard track #3, of the spiderman title. It breaks down into a really good hardcore riff for the last 2 minutes of the song, not to mention the classic metal riff openers.

And now onto what could use some work for this album. Number one, the production. It seems a bit grainy at times and muddy at others. This CD would definately deserve a better score if the production was better. Next, I think that some times the songs get a bit repetitive, as they average about seven minutes long. This sometimes goes beyond the point of good song writing and hits levels of being mundane.

All in all, I think this is a solid album, especially for posicore fans. And altough I would never buy it for myself, I think it deserves some checking out just in case you might totally dig it.