Album Review: Emmure - Speaker of the Dead

Queen’s, New York five piece Emmure are back with another slab of deathcore with their latest album release 'Speaker of the Dead'. This being album number four in the bands arsenal of bruising and heavy music combined with yet more dark and brutal fuelled lyrics.

The bands previous album 2009’s ‘Felony’ wasn’t received too well with fans preferring the older albums ‘The Respect Issue’ and ‘Goodbye to the Gallows’, it is interesting to see how this album goes down with fans.

“You can’t fuck with us” lyrics from the albums opening track 'Children of Cybertron' mixed with plenty of breakdowns sets the album off well. From the opening track the album doesn’t let up or slow down blasting through the songs ‘Area 64-66’, ‘Dogs Get Put Down’, ‘Eulogy Of Giants’, ‘4 Poisons 3 Words’ and ‘Cries of Credo’ really showcase the sheer brutality the songs have and also lets not to forget showing the amount of breakdowns as well.

Halfway through the album and more melodic sounding guitar work flows into both songs ‘Bohemian Grove’ and ‘Last Words to Rose’ which show that mixed with breakdowns it works well. The catchy guitar riff on ‘A Voice From Below’ also works well to bring in a different element away from the constant breakdown sound you hear throughout the album.

Final few songs of the album and the breakdowns come blasting back in; ‘Word of Intulo’ is just one continuous song with the same breakdown riff for about 35 seconds which is kind of pointless and ends the album not too well.

‘Speaker of the Dead’ is a good album but it is nothing too special, continual breakdowns for nine of the albums fifteen songs are abit much and can get a little repetitive at times. The vocals on the album screamed out by vocalist Frankie Palmeri cover the same topics as previous albums; hatred, betrayal and bitterness.

If you are a fan of Emmure and their three previous albums then definitely pick this album up as it sits perfectly with the past albums. If you are new to hearing about this band then give this album a listen but just expect to hear a vast amount of breakdowns.

3.5/5

‘Speaker of the Dead’ by Emmure is available now on Victory Records.

Emmure is on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

Aaron Wilson