Album Review: Erase The Pain

New Jersey rockers Palisades are back with their fourth studio album, Erase The Pain.

Palisades made an interesting decision to release Erase The Pain just before 2019 began. Maybe they thought a December 28 release would give them some sort ofedge against other artists, or maybe the album wasn’t expected to be a major success.

Palisades’ original sound was the sort of thing you would hear blaring at a frat party. Of course, since their earliest release they’ve moved further towards metalcore, creating a sound rife with generic elements like heavy breakdowns and fast, aggressive instrumentation.

An album highlight was ‘Fade’ as it’s a little heavier, featuring some breakdowns and a little bit of screaming. I feel as if they were holding back in this track though, like they wanted the song to be heavier and wanted to go harder and just didn’t. It gives me Hybrid Theory-era Linkin Park vibes—not a carbon copy, but an attempt at it. Another notable track is the single ‘War’. It was definitely the best choice as the first single; it’s a good hype song, with its simple breakdowns and simple lyrics to make it a track fans want to scream along to. It also isn’t restricted to clean vocals, giving the false impression that the whole album would be similar. The rest of the tracks don’t really meet that hype.

On first listen, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, as I hadn’t listened to Palisades in two album cycles. Unfortunately, the first play through Erase The Pain was enough for me. It’s an overly-familiar sound, like an album I had put on as background noise. It’s reminiscent of recent Bring Me the Horizon releases, though a poor imitation

Metalcore, as a genre, is at a weird point in its development. It’s expanding beyond rock and metal influences, bringing synthesizers and electronics into play. Erase The Pain could’ve been successful and brought the band a lot of support 5 years ago, but it just doesn’t fit in agenre that’s moved past this sound. What Palisades have released is essentially “metalcore for beginners”. Perhaps there’s a niche market for 15-year old’s that would want to listen to an album with slightly heavier guitars and mostly-clean.

Rating: 2/5

Edited by George Jones |

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