More religious themed metalcore following the likes of Symphony In Peril, Zao, The Showdown and Norma Jean, but unfortunately despite a valiant and impressively powerful effort, Alove For Enemies just don’t quite measure up to their peers.

The main reason for their slightly lacking result is that despite a super punchy production and a plethora of churning chugging riffs, nothing at all stands out on The Harvest. I personally expect an esoterically guided album to at least have some measure of eye raising grace within its pummeling visage to give it more personal depth without reading the lyrics. Now granted, the Dead to Fall like bludgeonings that are parleyed into songs do have some solid girth and resonance, but there’s A) Nothing to musically match Alove For Enemies message (like say, Nehemiah), and B) Nothing to separate them for the generic metalcore pack. For a straight up chugging, metalcore fueled album this is solid, but so are about 25 other albums I’ve already heard this year (and actually most of them are on Facedown/Strikefirst).

‘Prologue’ hints at an epic religious metalcore journey with its angelic intro, but from there on out, ‘Angels Don’t Burn’ and beyond does nothing to revisit this feeling, but instead barrels and careens with little regard for subtlety or harmonies. The burly production that improves vastly upon their Broken Pledge EP, breathes life into the rumbling, crackling facade, but has little real presence beyond sheer noise-much like the music and vocals really. Growler Erich has a brutish shout, but beyond a few spoken words and gang chants, has virtually no character. For those that are simply happy with breakdowns, Alove For Enemies should appease you at least, as track like ‘Smoke Screen’, ‘Thieves in the Crowd’, ‘My Days are Vanity’ and ‘The Triumph of Trumpets’ all have some satisfying grooves, but that’s about it. Take it as you will, if you’re the type that despises soaring harmonies and melodies, that may well be for you as it certainly scores on the heaviness department, just don’t expects any of the songs to truly stick with you. If you are the Shai Hulud, Misery Signals type, Alove For Enemies may not provide enough musical depth (although plenty of spiritual depth) to entertain you.

A solid but purely middle ground hardcore/metalcore effort that has plenty of lyrical and personal conviction, but no really musical epiphanies to match.

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