Customer Reviews

Waking Giants

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Life in Your Way's newest album, and their first since signing with Solid State, is their cleanest yet. Life in Your Way has always had deep lyrics with complex and energetic music and this album is no different. However this album seems to be more mature, there is less raw energy and more beautiful melodies surrounding lyrics that come straight from the heart. Since the first time I saw LIYW play my favorite thing has been the way they blend screaming hardcore with purposeful lyrics and soaring bridges, and they have taken it to a new level with this release. Though I like most of the new songs, Track 6, "Salty Grave" is my new favorite LIYW song. Also, the Waking Giants cover art (a mountain range made out of a sleeping man under a starry sky) is amazing.

Before I had received this album to review I had already added it to my list of CDs that I needed to purchase. I had seen a full page ad in the latest AP and listened to a few tracks on their PureVolume site and after one listen, knew I needed to own all of their discs. The following week, I received their SolidState debut to review. To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

So what is Life in Your Way? Waking Giants makes it's statement with the opener, ""Reach the End"" which fuses all of the best elements of the screamo genre and, in particular, the SolidState label: Aggressive riffing, atmospheric leads and excellent clean vocals!

All of the songs seem to have a quiet dignity about them, moving in and out of melody and chaos with ease. The clean complimenting the guttural screams wonderfully while the always atmospheric and moving leads dance seamlessly underneath the vocals. The album, as a whole, doesn't display the diversity that Failure On does, but it's powerful in its incessant attack in the Beloved(us) way. LiYW also use the spoken word section that a few bands such as Shai Hulud and Poison the Well made popular in the late 90's, early 2000's.

For highlights of the album, listen to the middle section of "We Don't Believe." The pleading vocals that go against a building backdrop until it crescendos into an explosion of emotion and pleading. The song sums up the album: Powerful and reflective.

Another highlight on the disc is "The Shame" where the band uses their fantastic lead work to compliment driving guitars. The song just moves and pushes forward with the same intensity that Underoath does.

It's important to note that the clean singing on this album is much less emo then one might expect. It's a nice change of pace as only a few bands in the genre have singers that aren't completely whiney.

It's early in 2007 but this is my album of the year front-runner right now. Beautiful, chaotic, and powerful--Life in Your Way has crafted a disc that fits into the small niche that Beloved(us) created.

Highly recommended for fans of: Beloved(us), Hopesfall, Underoath

Had it not been for the band UnderOath, Life In Your Way may have flown right under my radar. After all, the band with three studio records under their belt isn't exactly well known on the national scale, and their sound isn't quite what you'd call accessible. BUT, somehow I managed to catch a listen, and was impressed enough to add Waking Giants to my collection.

Vocally, LITW is pretty heavy, following along the lines of Underoath and Poison The Well(spoken word interludes). In fact, you could almost accuse LITW of apeing the above mentioned (the former especially) if not for the fact that LITW is instrumentally progressive. Lots of tempo changes, brilliant atmosphereics and spacy guitar sounds sans electric programming make up a good major of this set list, which sets LITW just enough apart from their TNN brethren.

As good as this record is, I can't help but feel it's still a bit formulaic. It's the same feeling I get when I listen to Four Letter Lie. A good band, a great sound...just not a whole lot of originality. Still, Waking Giants is LIYW's most streamlined and accessible release to date (and I say that in the best possible way). Many bands within the genre fall into the catagory of nearly inaccessible, but LIYW is no such band. Fans of Hardcore and Emo alike should find a lot to enjoy here, provided they're not looking for sheer originality.

This album is pure crap. I've been listening to this band since the sun rises... and I had full faith that they would perform for their first album on solidstate. I can remember the release of ignite and rebuild, and everything about that album was awesome, especially seeing the band live, since I went to high school with the two guitarists. Now they sign on to solidstate and i expect nothing but the best... and they completely let me down.
Not that the whole album is awful, just every track except for worthwhile and making waves, both of which i had already heard before I bought the album.
What made them think it would be cool to redo a song from their earlier album and play it exactly the same way, with very minor changes? It seemed to me like they were being rushed by their label or something to finish the album, and just gave up.
And what's with all these instrumental waste-of-my-time tracks? It really seemed to me as if the band gave up halfway through the album.

To conclude, there's nothing in this album that you can't get for free on their myspace. What an enormous waste of time and talent.

This album is simply better than their other albums in my opinion. I think they have a perfect hardcore factor mixed with suspenceful calms before all of the storms, it is awesome and a awesome shock from what I though was just a good band!

I was a huge fan of "Ignite and Rebuild." The music on that album was amazing. "The Sun Rises..." was also very good, but didn't do it for me like the the later album. Now, when I heard Life in Your Way had switched to "Solid State Records," I was so excited. It serves them right. They are a great band with a lot of talent and deserve better exposure, which Solid State could provide them with. But, The record label has taken certain things away from their sound that I most enjoyed. The dynamics. The older stuff held the music (guitars) at a higher regard, than "Waking Giants." The music is generally the same... the vocals are still great, but the mixing and editing has washed the guiars together. They aren't as distinguishable as they previously were. Therefor, I find that the music isn't as powerful as it once was. But, this is still worth buying!