Remember when For The Fallen Dreams was one of the best melodic hardcore/metalcore bands around, not a somewhat generic metalcore band with questionable cleans? Ahh, yes, the days of Changes and Relentless (the cleans on Relentless were actually very good, and sparse). Luckily for fans of old For The Fallen Dreams, there has been quite a few bands popping up that live by similar blueprints. One of which, a five-piece from Texas called Carry Your Ghost, caught my attention with their debut EP entitled Decisions; 25 minutes of very solid metalcore with melodic hardcore influences. Carry Your Ghost’s new album entitled Weight Of The World was in the making for what seemed like an eternity, but it’s finally here! Well, it’s here on January 3rd of 2013.
If you listen to Decisions followed by Weight Of The World, you should notice a drastic improvement in every way possible. The vocals – especially the highs – are much improved, and the drumming has become a bit more technical and even faster paced. Also, there are several more melodic leads, fewer chugging verses, and fewer breakdowns. There is one problem with the breakdowns, though, and I’ll circle back to that later.
Continuing on with the change in vocals, there are no longer dual vocalists. Kohlman went on to pursue another project and that left Matt to take care of the lead vocal duties on Weight Of The World. The mids/lows have remained strong and improved slightly, but the major improvement lies in the highs. The improved highs can be heard on a few tracks, most notably “Low Places” and “Weight Of The World”. Furthermore, “Weight Of The World” closes out the album extremely well with its culminating instrumentals and chanted “WHOA”s.
Although the improvement in vocals is a huge one, the influx of melodic riffs and leads is what really stands out and grabs my attention. “Young Minds”, “Set In Stone”, and “Broken Man” are loaded with melodies that sound like a combination of Hundredth and old For The Fallen Dreams, while tracks like “Low Places” are driven by more metalcore-ish guitar parts that still have their fair share of melody. Although “Low Places” does have more of a metalcore vibe, it is one of my personal favourites. The vocals are incredible throughout, and the last half of the song is superb because of the drum fills, groovy basslines, a spectacular lead, and crushing outro.
After all this praise, we finally come to the mere mediocre aspect; the previously mentioned breakdowns. They are absolutely monstrous, but fairly easy to read, and to a point, most of them sound similar. Considering the fact that Carry Your Ghost really mellowed out the breakdown and chugging usage, this is just a very minor flaw in an otherwise nearly perfect debut album that will certainly catch the attention of diehard Changes fans as well as luring in fans of metalcore and melodic hardcore in general.
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