 
Australian five piece Parkway Drive have been
making a noise in the metal core scene since they
released their debut album ‘Killing With
A Smile’ back in 2005, but it was 2010’s
‘Deep Blue’ which really saw the band
get the recognition that they deserved with ‘Deep
Blue’ hitting up many alternative charts
and featuring on various publications best albums
of the year feature, well Parkway Drive are now
back with their fourth studio album ‘Atlas’
which in my opinion is the best album they have
ever released and is going to see their fan base
expand massively.
‘Atlas’ see’s the band reflecting
on their constant travels where life in the band
has seen them play pretty much all over the world
on numerous occasions, the album stays true to
the bands signature sound but see’s them
move in a more mature hard hitting direction with
super slick production.
The album opens with various different soundscapes
coming through in ‘Sparks’, as the
song progresses the drums come in giving off a
sound of a marching band trooping past, as the
song progresses even further you are treated to
some spoken word vocals of “Born of dust
and stone, dead hearts roaming a dying home, fight
leaves us all, white cloths upon the shores of
time, we are but sparks in a darkened world, and
yet some things were born to burn”, moments
later the guitars come in all supercharged and
raring to go as Winston McCall screams “I’ll
Bring The Gasoline” and before you know
it the song finishes and Parkway Drive launch
into ‘Old Ghost/ New Regrets’ which
is a metalcore masterpiece with its chugging guitar
riffs, intense drumming, raw lead vocals and epic
sounding gang vocals.
Songs like ‘Wild Eyes’, ‘Dark
Days’, ‘Swing’ and ‘Snake
Oil And Holy Water’ will have you head banging
like crazy and will also leave you wishing you
were in the pit at a Parkway Drive gig to shake
off the adrenaline the songs leave running through
your body as they are big frantic sounding songs.
‘The River’ and the album title track
‘Atlas’ see’s Parkway Drive
take on a more laid back sound, the vocals are
still as raw as ever in places more so throughout
‘The River’, yet instrumentally things
get very experimental as everything becomes more
toned down yet just as pleasing on the ears.
Metalcore may not be everyone’s thing but
when it comes to the metalcore scene Parkway Drive
are the kings of it as they have a knack of crafting
heavy musicianship with raw as fuck vocals and
mixing it up ever so slightly to give it a big
listenable sound, and the best thing about Parkway
Drive is the fact that they are not shy when it
comes to creating new music and like to experiment
with different things and so far they can do no
wrong as they have just released yet another solid
album which is all killer no filler.
5/5
Review by Trigger
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