Abandon All Ships latest release, Infamous, is an album that kind of took me by surprise. I’d never heard them before and when the grueling key of hardcore kicked in I thought for a second that I was in for yet another hardcore act that would pound the hell out of their instruments, sometimes to great acclaim, and their singer would hash out some growling, probably deep meaning, lyrics that I would be unable to decipher without a lyric sheet to guide me. Then the dark style techno caught my ear. From then on the rest was pretty much history for me. This band became one I found I would go out of my way to check out their previous works and probably go on to purchase future releases. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this is an almost guilty pleasure type of band for me though.

The format for this band is a hardcore style mixed with pop radio sentimentality, autotune and all. Usually I’d just as soon piss on anything that incorporated autotune in the mix but Abandon All Ships makes it work. Their sound reminded me of a cross between early Slipknot and Linkin Park with a sound too big compare to anything else. Between the two vocalists there really isn’t much to get excited about as far as what they bring on a substance level. The bands hardcore singer spouts the usual; fuck society, fuck you, I hate stuff and I‘m angry. Meanwhile the more pop autotune prone singer is all about mack talk, being sensitive, and talking about their feelings. It sounds like it should suck but somehow it’s all so refreshing, so aggressive and blood pumping, you can’t not get into this album.

I liked almost all of this album. There were a couple of songs towards the back end that went straight emo pop which I couldn’t get into, but for a basic fuck the world type album for lovers you can’t go wrong. I highly suggest.