Album Review: The Air I Breathe - Great Faith In Fools

Not since Neville Chamberlain stood declared "...peace for our time" has an act of appeasement seemed so ill-judged.

Well, no - not really. But The Air I Breathe, attempting to find some sort of middle ground between broootal metal and pop-hooks, certainly seemed to have compromised to such an extent that fans of both genres will be disappointed with the results. It's like fans of this album sit in the middle of a Venn diagram - but there is plenty of space for them to stretch their legs.

"Great Faith in Fools" is a metal-by-numbers exercise in which all songs basically consist of intro-scream-y verse-guitar noodling-clean chorus-BREAKDOWN-solo-outro. For the metalcore genre the guitar work is very impressive and the interplay between the two guitarists is remarkably tight - when they are not chugging out dissonant drop-C chords - and while the drumming is perfectly functional, it does nothing to break away from the "I'm going to mass my double-bass as quickly as I can" mentality.

The album, which contains four re-worked songs from TAIB's previous release, will no doubt delight fans - especially the album highlight "The Awakening" - which closes "Great Faith in Fools" on a rare high-point. But zone out for a few minutes and no doubt, by the time you have resumed paying attention, you will be in the middle of another breakdown.

There is very little that will convert people who are unfamiliar with the genre to go out and buy more albums, and I think even fans of the genre may find this brings very little new to the table. But if guttural screams, shred solos and breakdowns are your thing then I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

2/5

'Great Faith In Fool' by The Air I Breathe is out now on Rise Records.

Find The Air I Breathe on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.

Nick Robbins