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Deep Blue is the third full-length effort from Parkway Drive, and at first, it may sound like a slight departure from the band's previous material thanks to the atmosphere the first track gives off, but that would only be you lying to yourself. Nothing much has really changed as far as the band's music goes, except that it has become a lot tighter, and has an atmosphere that proves to be like the artwork accompanying this album: Rather dark, but not necessarily in an intimidating way, all the while still maintaining songs that just have an overall fun-to-dance-to feel. The increase in breakdowns, however, is something that really could have been left out, and an influx in slow material also aids in holding Parkway Drive back from being a fantastic release. The music on Deep Blue is pretty slow compared to some of the band's previous material, and in fact sometimes feels a little mundane and repetitive the more you listen to it, even though many of the songs show great variety in the composition and structuring. This isn't to say that there are not faster, more upbeat tracks available on here. "Deadweight" winds up being the first real faster paced track, though it does wind up sharing in it's slower moments such as during the breakdowns, as well as the bridges in the music. The bridges during this track also seem a little empty compared to everything else on this track, and the background screams that litter the album are insanely hollow and tinny compared to the main vocal recordings that are at the forefront of each song and can get really annoying, such as during the closing of "Pressures". Another thing about this release is that sometimes there are some Melodic Death-like melodies that appear, typically in the bridges leading to the chorus. "Sleepwalker" is one of these tracks, and thanks to the guitar hooks and melodies used, it winds up sounding rather upbeat compared to the more darker sounding "Unrest". "Deliver Me" also utilizes these kinds of guitars as well, but pushes things a little further with a brief slowpaced acoustic session mid-song that brings in a haunting eerieness to the sound and solifies the Melodic Death influence heavily to this rather Hardcore/Metalcore attitude track. This isn't a bad thing at all, as it really does work with the aforementioned atmosphere of the recording, and often manages to bring the songs to a whole other level, such as the track "Karma" which uses it to greatly enhance the intense in-your-face -core aspects of the song's construction. Honestly, Deep Blue is Parkway Drive's best album to date. There's a great offering of tracks on here that range from straight forward Metalcore, as well as some great tracks that bring in a melodic influence, or in the case of "Home is for the Heartless", a haunting atmosphere that seems to breath an artistic vision that Metalcore bands often can never really reach without stepping that line into the Progressive Metalcore style that many bands such as Between the Buried and Me have been bringing. The only times that this release disapoints is the sudden change in "Hollow" with the guest vocalist that brings in a more Hardcore edge to the song out of nowhere and causes a great shift musically in the album. Aside that, you also have the introductory track "Samsara", which, while doing it's job well to set the overall tone of many of the tracks presented here, it still sounds like it's just part of "Unrest", and in the end would have sounded better left as a whole instead of seperating them into two different tracks. When you look at the track times, you would expect "Set to Kill" to be the same kind of set up as the first two tracks on here, but luckily that is not the case and it's a whole other song entirely. Put pretty much all you've heard of Parkway Drive on the back burner, as this album shows a great deal of maturity for the band. Outside of the music being a little tighter with better compositions, and a little bit of an advancement towards a more melodic sound that breaks the very straightforward mold of the band just enough to make this release unique to their previous releases, it's still technically the same band that the fans have come to love. If you happen to pass by this album, make sure to go back and check it out, as Deep Blue is actually an album greatly worth your time, despite the breakdowns that seem to hold it back early on in the album. |
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