| Article number: | 603497819409 |
| Availability: | In stock |
Alive or Just Breathing, the second album from Killswitch Engage, finds the company reaffirming its vows to the spirit of extreme thrash that it was founded in. In truth, Alive or Just Breathing is not a pure thrash metal statement--this Massachusetts five-piece have the modern rock nous to add hefty slabs of accessible stadium rock to their frantic assault.
Mind you, that's certainly a good thing: "Numbered Days" might rock awful hard, but it still has time to squeeze in a memorable chorus (albeit, one about the disintegration of civilization as we know it). Front-man Jesse David Leach's excellent vocals are strongly influenced by religion, philosophy and mythology: the likes of "Temple from the Within" and "Self Revolution" find him wrestling with an ideology that falls somewhere between the serene meditative state of Buddhism and a brooding sense of Nietzschean self-belief. The closing "Rise Inside" even holds a positive message behind its brutal hardcore exterior, Leach shrieking "I believe love will overcome" as the album grinds to a rocky end. This is a quality example of metal done the old way. --Louis Pattison