  
For the entire duration of the summer I have been
absolutely wetting my pants in excitement at the
prospect of having an album featuring a collaboration
between 2 of my favourite metalcore artists on
the scene, Alex Varkatzas (the vocalist from Atreyu)
and Brandon Schieppati (Vocalist of Bleeding Through)
both of which between them are responsible for
producing some of my all time favourite songs.
Think about that prospect; the extremely atmospheric
dark metal that Bleeding Through have built a
career out of, that extremely melodic technical
style that Atreyu have dominated in their careers,
those 2 distinctive voices together on one album
of – what has been promised – extremely
heavy back to the roots of aggressive music styled
material, the mouth drools does it not?
So I finally got my hands on it after waiting
too long and impatiently twiddling my thumbs checking
the bands facebook and twitter pages, ripped it
onto my computer and before I’ve even started
to listen by the track lengths alone I can see
who’s band this favours more already; extremely
short durations just scream Bleeding Through,
the problem is though all 13 tracks add up to
a total of 26 minutes which is kind of a rip off
in my eyes, even when bands like Municipal Waste
produce albums they still put on more songs to
make up that time length. Upon further examination
it would appear that what could have been an elaborate
groundbreaking step for metalcore just seems to
be a slight altering of their standard formula;
to describe it best take Bleeding Through’s
style as it is, remove the atmospheric keyboards
that give it distinction, add Alex Varkatzas screaming
vocals and there you have I Am War.
It’s not really pushing the boat out to
dabble in fresh waters, it’s like drinking
Coke for years on end and then this new drink
is hyped your taste buds tingle then it turns
out to be Asda’s own cola, nothing special
and not a life changing experience you’d
brag to your friends about just more of the same.
The only songs that in my opinion are even worth
listening to are “The Poisoning” and
“Don’t Worship Assholes” as
with the rest of the tracks I just seem to get
lost in a sea of distortion, quick drumming and
a various range of screaming vocals. Today has
been a sad day for me as it was the ultimate boner
killer when I was right on the cusp of making
a mess, oh the disappointment
2.5/5
Review by James Webb
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