Album Review: The Amity Affliction -This Could Be Heartbreak (Roadrunner Records)

The fifth album from the Australian metalcore band, The Amity Affliction hardly fills the listener with good vibes from the start. If you’re not much of a metalcore fan, opening song I Bring the Weather With Me is not going to change that.

It’s a terrible opening song, boring music with over-used clean/dirty vocals playing off each other. The chorus (clean vocals) is cringe-worthy with its ‘will you miss me when I’m gone’ lyric & you start getting that feeling that this is aimed at a certain crowd.

Every song follows a similar format, aggressive & heavy vocals backed by uninspired instruments followed by a chorus of clean singing that grinds away at your sanity. This album shows such a lack of imagination & effort, it’s embarrassing.

The songs fly by in a haze of nothing, unmemorable with few distinctions to make them stand out from the rest. There is no desire to lift most of these songs above mediocrity while others like Tearing Me Apart are so bad they should have never seen the light of day.

Even the song titles are embarrassing. O.M.G.I.M.Y. stands for Oh My God I’m Missing You & sounds exactly like several of the songs that came before. This is particularly frustrating as it starts off promisingly.

All Fucked Up, coming at the halfway point, will probably be where most people give up on this album as it’s a soft (mostly) clean vocal song that couldn’t be further from being ‘fucked up’. There is no passion here even though the band seems to desperately be trying to create emotional impact.

The best song on the album, Fight My Regret gets that distinction because it’s the only one that changes the formula up slightly. Choosing instead to focus more on heavy vocals & dropping a fun but simple breakdown.

Naturally though the band makes little effort in capitalising on that by quickly returning to the same tired sound that has dominated this 11 track album. A sound that is likely to put the listener to sleep.

Imagine a bottle of Coors light, a half empty bottle of Coors light that has been left out in the sun for the last 24 hours. Now drink that bottle of Coors light…that taste sums up This Could Be Heartbreak by The Amity Affliction.

Full Track List:

1. I Bring The Weather With Me
2. This Could Be Heartbreak
3. Nightmare
4. Tearing Me Apart
5. O.M.G.I.M.Y.
6. All Fucked Up
7. Fight My Regret
8. Some Friends
9. Wishbone
10. Note To Self
11. Blood In My Mouth