I, the Breather is a five piece Christian metalcore band from Baltimore, Maryland. Their newest album, Truth and Purpose, is their second full-length album, both of which have been released while being signed to the powerhouse Sumerian Records. Personally, I thought their debut album, These Are My Sins, was a solid album, but it became quite repetitive rather quickly. However, Truth and Purpose has a pretty diverse sound and it does not bore me at all. Starting the album off on the right foot with a great song, False Prophet slowly fades in, but the fun doesn’t begin until you hear the vocalist, Shawn Spann, scream “I am not a king. You’re not a prophet!”, which cues the instruments to join in at full volume. I really fell in love with the cleans early in this album. As soon as I heard the cleans on False Prophet, I was already enjoying them so much. Next up is The Beginning. It would have made sense to start the album with a song title like this and not name the second song The Beginning, but the choice of song titles is not what we’re paying attention to here. We’re paying attention to the musical value and that is definitely very high in this song! The clean vocals heard throughout the album are quickly becoming some of my favourites in metalcore and the chorus in The Beginning is great like False Prophet. The third track is Bruised & Broken. My initial thoughts of this song when it was released by the band a few months prior to the release date were “wow, this sounds much better than their older stuff”, but after hearing the whole album, this is actually one of the weaker songs. The next three songs (tracks 4, 5, and 6) are some of my favourites on the album. Mentalist features a very well-executed guest vocal spot by Micah Kinard, vocalist of Oh, Sleeper, and some incredible guitar leads that give me chills all up and down my spine. The fifth track, Meaning (Victory), is definitely the most appealing song to my ears on the album. Again, we experience some spellbinding guitar leads that could possibly leave you motionless from all the chills. At the end of Meaning (Victory), there is a nice little piano outro that flows into the next song, an instrumental going by the name of Lunar. I’m not a huge fan of instrumental interludes, but Lunar maintains the heaviness and melody that is heard throughout Truth and Purpose, so I have no problems whatsoever with this one. The seventh track is Knights & Pawns, which is probably the weakest song on the album, but in the last fifteen seconds there is a really bouncy breakdown that makes up for the lack of action in the rest of the song. Next up is Judgment. The guitar leads in this song are also very good and there is a part near the middle of the song with dueling screams and cleans that sounds awesome! The ninth track, Rephaim, is named after a Pre-Israelite race of giants from the Bible. There are some pretty good lyrics in Rephaim. For example, I think the best line is “We are trying to be something we are not. We are not God”. The final track on Truth and Purpose is titled 4.12.11. Everything that I’ve already about how the guitar and screams are great can be can be said about this song too. 4.12.11 is just a great way to end a really surprising album. I’m not a huge fan of metalcore anymore because it’s heavily saturated with generic bands, but I’m positive that this will be an album that remains in my iTunes library and on repeat for a long time to come because it is anything but generic. This album has left me nearly speechless. The production is really good, I love the guitar tone and melodies, the drumming is solid, the lyrical content is pretty good, and the cleans and screams are both great. 
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