The songs on the album:

La Casa De Mi Padre
Fun
Party at Gatsby's
I Don't Cosplay
Valley Brat
Winnebago
Abdiela
Foar Boxxy
Daisy Chain


Before I start into the album review, I’m going to give a little background. On January 3rd of this year I attended a Blackmore concert at the Troubadour and The Unending Thread was opened up the concert. After The Unending Thread’s performance, Cesar Alas (lead guitar and vocals) approached me with a copy of The Forum. My father and I have, since that day, listened to this album many times and have been thoroughly impressed. They definitely have one thing down that will separate them from other bands: the openings to songs. Their openings exude awesomeness like a classic Sum 41 opening.
The album starts off with this really interesting guitar riff that has a great use of syncopation that many bands tend to overlook as a form of musicianship.  The first line of this song is one of my favourite quotes of all time: “those who don’t know history are always doomed to repeat it.” I also enjoy this quote: “The best part of this journey, it hasn’t happened yet.” This song has a really epic guitar part that makes you want to headbang like crazy. Definitely a fun one. Cesar and Kim (lead vocals)’s voices always blend together beautifully which works really well with the music.

Song two, “Fun,” mixes fast yet melodic guitar playing with their classic meld of vocals. It also has this surreal part in the middle where a soft background chord accompanies a light rhythm on top. Kim then sings like Evanescence, using the famous meloncholy-with-gusto style. A rhythmically creative guitar solo follows to end that phase of the song.

“Party at Gatsby’s” starts off with a quiet and mysterious guitar riff that is soon joined by the other instruments until Cesar’s voice comes in and changes the mood. After a verse, an odd vocal comes in through that sounds somewhat like it’s being filtered through a loudspeaker. Later, the drummer plays a drum solo that piggybacks into an epic guitar solo. The rest of the song after that is purely instrumental and quite danceable.

This next one is really a very cool song that also happens to have a music video that’s worth checking out. I’m not sure I can completely pinpoint what makes “I Don’t Cosplay” so good, but I think it’s at least partially due to the verses being sweetly sung by Kim with an echo-y guitar background. Plus, the guitar part during the chorus really creates a compelling sound. I’m not entirely sure what the song title, “I Don’t Cosplay” is meaning because cosplay is dressing up as a superhero or character from games or TV shows and such. It’s all up to your analyzing what you think this song means.

The beginning of “Valley Brat” is really dancey and fun thanks to the drum beat. I swear I was bouncing in my seat every time I listened to it. After a quick beginning, the song slides into a more muddy section before switching back into the initial mood. This song also has a really cool synth beat that joins in about two and a half minutes into the song.  This one line is repeated multiple times in the song and I took great humour in it so here it is: “We are the lovely valley brats. We’re fabulous, aren’t we?”

“Winnebago” was my dad’s favourite song that The Unending Thread performed in concert. It has a cool upbeat thing going on in the intro that is carried on by the drums and occasionally joined in once again by the guitarists. After the first chorus, the drums get another solo! I love drums solos :) This song also has a brought out keyboard part and this really cool guitar riff that shows up approximately two and half minutes into the song. Following this, an a cappella part that includes hand clapping and escalates back into the full band playing. Great song!

This next song, “Abdiela,” has a rather curious first 20 seconds; of course an awesome guitar riffs joins in and makes the music even better. I wonder if this song is a Romeo & Juliet reference, but it doesn’t really correlate. If you listen, Juliet loving her cat is brought up for a while which I entertaining. “Oh! No! Where’s Juliet?!” is repeated in a spoken word-ish manner at the very ending, so quite possibly it’s referencing the famous Shakespeare play  instead of just using the name “Juliet.”

The beginning of “Foar Boxxy” has two intricate guitar riffs that weave together really well. I decided to Google “foar boxxy,” trying to figure out what it meant. Apparently Boxxy is a character played by an internet celebrity/vlogger… I’m a little confused, maybe I should be spending more of my time on YouTube instead of watching Glee and doing homework. Did I mention that this song has an  awesome guitar solo?  Well, it does.

The last song, “Daisy Chain,” startled me when it first started playing because one of the male vocalists was half screaming and there was this intense and heavy bass that is completely out of character compared to the rest of the album. There is a sort of back and forth going on between the screaming with the heavy sound and the sweet vocals with the more melodious sound. It’s just a very interesting song. Just go listen to it.

This album is awesome and The Unending Thread is a small band. Give them some support and go listen to this album.

Let’s start with some short background info: Memphis May Fire is a band from Dallas, Texas, that formed in 2004. Their newest album, Challenger, was released in 2012.
Anyways, how did I discover this band? Let’s see…. A friend of mine recommended me this insane list of bands and I proceeded to download Pandora on my phone and create dozens of stations. I started with Of Mice & Men and Memphis
May Fire kept playing and every time I heard anything by them, my immediate thought was wow. These guys kick ass. And, by the way, they do.

The Songs on the album:

Without Walls
Alive In the Lights
Prove Me Right
Red In Tooth & Claw
Vices
Legacy
Miles Away (featuring Kellin Quinn)
Jezebel
Losing Sight (featuring Danny Worsnop)
Generation: Hate
Vessels

This album is an awesome experimentation mixing soothing synth beats with serious metalcore. You start off with “Without Walls,” which starts with this haunting keyboard riff and a few measures in a whispery chant falls in and increases in volume until there’s a complete style switch to screaming and a driving drum beat. Throughout this there remains in the background the original riff that the whole song fades to in the closing.

Next up Challenger plunges into the hardcore “Alive In the Lights.” After a beginning of drums and screaming interlaced with an epic guitar riff, the keyboard slides in again to give an apprehensive mood to the music. Once MMF reaches the chorus, Matty Mullins (the lead singer) shows off his fantastic singing voice but immediately switches back into growling. This leads into a short but sweet guitar solo that ends with screaming and a repeat of great guitar work. Throughout the chorus repetitions, you can experience the impressive high range that Mullins possesses that is definitely not apparent in his deep-throated screams.

“Prove Me Right” starts out with guitar chords that are quickly joined by a simple drum beat and then the enjoyable voice of Mullins who later switches back to his growling. “Prove Me Right” has this extremely drum-driven and catchy chorus followed by an almost spoken word type line that ends in “Just know I told you so. HAHAHA!” A very fun and addicting song! Just remember… “Thanks for nothing” (a commonly repeated phrase during “Prove Me Right”).

A drum fill begins “Red In Tooth & Claw,” joined by the voice of Mullins that I enjoy so much. Seriously, there’s something almost addicting about his voice and I just love it in this song. There’s this one quote that I find particularly noteworthy (and funny in a slightly sick way) that I wish to share: “I think I have room in my heart but I simply reserved none.” Hahaha. The driving force of the bass drum carries the band during this song.

Next up is “Vices,” which has an unappealing vocal beginning, but the guitar work makes up for it. A repeated line in this song is “I just want to feel love again,” which hints to the meaning that can be narrowed down to “I’m a fuck up. I want you. But I’m a fuck up. But I want you. Etcetera.” Again, the bass is just such an imperative part in keeping the song moving. Without the solid bass line, there wouldn’t be MMF. Or they’d just suck. One of the two. Or they could become a pop band!

“Legacy” has a short few measures that builds up to Mullins screaming. Joining the rest of the sound comes an interesting keyboard riff that sounds like a xylophone. It sounds really cool. A bit later, the song builds up and then drops into this piano riff and then it just all picks back up again. It’s an interesting piece that repeats itself throughout the song. The lyrics in the bridge really appealed to me: “lift up your eyes discouraged one, when you feel like giving up, when they say it can’t be done, it’s up to you to show them why they’re wrong.” Also, the line “words only come to life when you believe,” strikes me pretty hard as a notable quote.

If you remember from the Holiday Visual Radio Special, “Miles Away” featuring Kellin Quinn was played. I love this song because it captures a specific kind of relationship, and it is done very well. Also, the song is beautiful which is admirable in and of itself.

“Jezebel” has an excellent transition from the previous song and definitely serves as a shocker because of the vocal change. I am not sure if I can pinpoint what it is about this song that I like so much, but it probably has to do with the great intertwinement of the guitar and baseline. I just love it! This would be awesome in concert; it’s a serious head-banger.

As if the album was designed for me, MMF starts out “Losing Sight” featuring Danny Worsnop starts out with a heavy bass drum beat and is joined by an intense rhythm guitar part. I love this one line: “I’ve grown blind from always being in the spotlight.” This makes a lot of sense because a lot of famous people end up in the limelight so long that they forget themselves; in a sense, they become blind to reality and make stupid choice after stupid choice after stupid choice.

“Generation: Hate.” Well I’m assuming you can guess what the song is about. And believe me, if you listen to the lyrics you get a pretty good idea of just how much hate Mullins is channeling for this song. I find this lyric funny: “your deepest secret’s that you wish that you were me.” That would inspire a lot of hate.

The album closes with “Vessels” which sounds really cool. That’s really all I have to say. There aren’t lyrics, but you can hear the raining in a boat dock or on a boat at sea and the shouting of people in the background. It’s moving to hear it because you can feel the tragedy.

Awesome album. You should listen to it.