One Last Time, a five piece metalcore band with origins in Scranton, Pennsylvania, return with their second EP “Message to the World”. To start off, I will say that I was first introduced to this band by one of the band members promoting the band on The Daily Mosh (see Affiliates) and was very impressed by their original EP. If you are a fan of Across the Sun, be sure to give these guys a listen.On to the review, the first track is the title track “Message to the World”. This song starts off showcasing what this band is about. Perfect and dirty screams, angelic clean vocals, heavy breakdowns, and bouncy guitar riffs are the things this band is best at. The breakdown towards the end of this song is obviously meant to be played live and would really get the place off of their feet.The next track is “MT9”. I’m not sure where the title came from but the song itself is very outstanding. The intro comes in with a melodic guitar riff and then moves on to a more energetic riff perfectly accompanied by the vocals. Nothing else really makes this track stick out other than the end of the song which is a very well executed verse of clean vocals.Next up is “Join the Fight”. As with all of the other songs before it, the breakdown comes in pretty early, but here it seems to last for over half of the song. Nothing really stands out about this particular track.”The Pride” does not disappoint me. This is definitely my favorite song on the EP. Coming in with an acoustic intro leads into a fast paced heavier section which really gets me moving. The transition from the screams to the clean vocals is one of the things I love about this band and that is shown here with gusto.The ending to this EP is “No Way Out.” This song is great as well because of the heavy intro and the vocals have more variety. The chorus is extremely catchy and clearly filled with emotion. The guitar leads really stand out, especially towards the end and it is a perfect conclusion to the short EP.Some complaints that I have with this album is that there is an abundance of breakdowns. The overuse of breakdowns makes them seem blander and brings down the performance in other areas. They could have easily gotten away only using half of the breakdowns they did. Every single song does not need a breakdown to make it better.Another thing is the lack of variety within the songs. This can be tied to the abused breakdown use as well. Honestly, there is little to nothing in each song that makes one stand out from the rest. The structure of the songs are generally the same and the vocals, as great as they are, barely ever change pitch and tone.Normally, I don’t listen to metalcore, but I made an exception with this band and I am not regretting it at all. With that being said, I believe this is a strong release to add to One Last Time’s record. I’m expecting to see even better releases from this band in the future.
Links: Facebook
Music