Memphis May Fire: Challenger Review

Album: Challenger
Artist: Memphis May Fire
Genre: Metalcore


6.0/10





     It’s hard to be a Metalcore band.  You have the average listener who walks into a Hot Topic and is turned off by the screaming.  Then you have the metalhead, who’s into drone, black, and death metal, griping about the “emo” vocals.  It’s a polarizing genre to say the least, but Metalcore’s influences are varied and strong.  The name of the genre is a combination of “Metal” and “Hardcore”, two movements that revolutionized rock with bands from Black Flag to The Blood Brothers to Metallica and back.  The Metalcore movement continues to grow, with more and more bands emerging, but it seems to have not changed that much sonically.  Metalcore songs still employ the same key aspects, screamed vocals for verses, pop vocals for choruses, and breakdowns to show off instrumental chops.  So when Memphis May Fire released Challenger I hoped for something fresh, something still distinctly Metalcore, but something invigorating.

      Challenger did not prove to be that album.  I found an album that showcased some great guitar and drum work, but still relied on the same tricks of the trade used by many Metalcore bands.  Many of these songs employ choppy, syncopated, breakdowns, harsh screaming vocals, very melodic but poppy choruses, and noodly guitar lines floating over the mix.  Almost each song follows this pattern, relying on the guitar and the lyrics to establish differences and keep the album fresh from song to song.  “Alive in the Lights” features a less technical, more rock n’ roll type guitar solo, not doing the whole “climb up the fretboard” thing.  “Jezebel” features more intricate lines, utilizing all parts of the neck.  Throughout Challenger the guitar continues to be the defining and differentiating factor.  Then there are the string arrangements.  In at least 4 songs I’m listening and out of nowhere I here an “epic” string line playing behind the chorus.  Clearly taken from a synthesizer, the idea is to add some fullness, some dynamics, but it just ends up taking away and completely clashing with the guitars and drums.  It was an idea that was questionable in its conception, and unsettling in its execution.

      The lyrics itself are incredibly straightforward, which is not a bad thing in itself, but the themes and emotions expressed are just short of just being stated.  I never found myself questioning what they were saying.  In “Red in Tooth and Claw” Matty Mullins talks about “his heart…thrown away” (that’s never been said before).  It’s a confident song at certain parts, depicting a man who is better off that an awful woman is gone from his life, but then weak at others, depicting someone who was broken by that same woman.  “Vices” also rehashes some of the old ideas about depression; it’s a song about drinking your problems away.  A bunch of songs have Matty calling out to the Judeo-Christian God for help, asking him to “help him accomplish what You sent me to do”.  “Jezebel” is the weirdest one though, an entire song hating on a loose woman.  His lyrics go completely overboard, bathing in self-indulgence (“you’ll never have me”) to completely hateful (“everyone wants you to leave”).  Overall these lyrics aren’t awful, but they do come across as a little patronizing and are perhaps too straightforward for someone seeking a little more poetry in a song’s lyrics.

     Overall we have a Metalcore album.  Straight up.  The guitar work is impressive, and everything else seems to just kind of fade into the Metalcore background.  Fans will like it, I’m sure, but it’s not going down on any lists this year, not for best and not for worst.  It gets 6.0 Challenges met out of 10.

FAVE TRACKS: Alive In the Lights, Prove me Right