Australia has long been a leading light in the metalcore scene, producing some of the genre’s most essential and influential acts over the last two decades. Parkway Drive, I Killed The Prom Queen, The Amity Affliction to name just a few, but could a future name to roll off the tongue be Saviour, the Perth five-piece now onto their third LP?
‘Let Me Leave’ takes the group’s emotive brand of melodic metalcore and aims to give it a sheen, a softer touch and a darker edge all at once. The contrasting vocals of Bryant Best and Shontay Snow combine over atmospheric sections of reverb-soaked lean guitars and keyboards mixed with more run-of-the-mill metalcore. It’s a relatively unchanging formula throughout the album, and attempts to mix things up, such as the addition of strings in ‘All I Am Is You’, are literally lost in the mix and quickly forgotten.
The standout component of Saviour is Snow, who’s vocal – never soaring, only soft and beautifully subdued – is ironically the saviour of several tracks that would otherwise fall entirely flat. The interplay with Best is hit and miss however, and tracks on which he takes the lead such as single ’Pressure and Composure’ are moments to forget.
Another is ’April’’s stale refrain, from which the title is mystifying taken – “Let me leave, I don’t want to, but I need to.” That said, ‘The Quiet Calm’ and ‘The Low In Hello’ exude a certain brooding energy in their understated riffs and effectively simple hooks, rising and falling smoothly. ‘The Cool Calm’ stands alone as completely free from Best’s often irritating unclean vocal style and any particularly heavy elements, and is all the better for it.
Despite having been active for over five years, Saviour have the aura of a new band. Hooks and fresh ideas are at times frustratingly limited, and it will take perhaps several more years and albums to craft themselves into a force to be reckoned with. ‘Let Me Leave’ is in fact a very consistent album – but the bar must be raised considerably before they are to be mentioned in the same breath as many of their revered countrymen.
3/5
’Let Me Leave’ by Saviour is released on 13th January on UNFD.
Saviour links: MySpace|Facebook|Twitter
Words by Peter Stewart (@PeteStew_)
