All Shall Perish – This is Where It Ends (2011)

As you all know, we mostly have anything Deathcore/Metalcore related so we dreaded to review the new album of All Shall Perish titled “This is Where It Ends”. Three years have passed since their last effort (“Awaken the Dreamers”) and with a new drummer and guitar player (Adam Pierce and Francesco Artusato, respectively) they return with 12 punish tracks of unimaginative (but powerful) guitar work, vocal layering, and brutal drumming.

Opening with the brutal “Divine Illusion” we can perfectly hear what most of the whole album is about: growls, shrieks, pounding bass guitar and traditional Deathcore riffing. If you are a Deathcore fan, this is pretty much as good as it gets for you, but if you are looking for something more ‘innovative’ or at least a bit different, get a different CD. A particular thing to notice is the guitar solos, they sound different than before a bit more creative we might even say, and this is probably due to Fancesco Artusato’s sick guitar skills.

On “There is Nothing Left” the first ugly change-up to clean vocals rears it’s head, but this song is somewhat saved by the solid melodic passage around the 2:30 minute mark. Most tracks fly by with no real relevance, they are good but nothing out of the ordinary. The guitar work is top notch, but repetitive and unimaginative for the most part. The vocals are your run-of-the-mill let’s scream until we can’t anymore approach. But there are a few parts here and there that make some tracks stand out, like the beginning of “Spineless” (you don’t here that everyday in Deathcore tracks), the melodic part at the end of “Rebirth” where we got some Death-like riffing and melodic brilliance, and the very odd (but excellent) last track “In This Life of Pain”.

 While it is fairly evident that Deathcore is just one of the genre’s we can’t really tolerate much, All Shall Perish has delivered a crushing release indeed. For all fans of the genre, we do have to say that the release is heaps better than the latest Black Dahlia Murder release, and pretty much one of the ‘best’ we have heard of this genre this year. However, if you like more creative guitar work, less predictable song structures, and vocals that actually sound ‘real’ (not overdone for brutality sake), then you should probably stay away from this genre in general.

Release: July 29th, 2011

Country: USA