We Came As Romans- Tracing Back Roots Album Review

Melodic Metalcore band We Came As Romans released their third album on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 titled Tracing Back Roots. I recall hearing their sophomore record Understanding What We’ve Grown To Be and was floored by the lyrical content and how tight the band sounded. The clean vocals were so high and clean, and the unclean vocals were rough and gritty. They were seriously in sync and it quickly became one of my favorite releases of 2011. But enough about the past, let’s move on to this record. Despite WCAR releasing three of their singles prior to the album’s full release, I decided against listening to them in interest of getting the full album experience when the album dropped. A friend of mine bought it on Tuesday and I was lucky enough to rip the tracks to my laptop so I could write this review.

The Record:

The album opens up strongly with Tracing Back Roots, a song that predominantly consists of unclean vocals. It is very heavy, and it starts the album of pretty well. Up next is Fade Away, a track that features David Stephens singing clean vocals alongside the original clean vocalist and keyboard player Kyle Pavon. It is primarily a clean song, and it shows the fans what David can do with his voice when he isn’t screaming. The third track on this record, I Survive, features Aaron Gillespie from The Almost. He blended very well in this track, a track that has a very interesting intro. It has a very hard rock feel to it and it has a laid back feel to it, minus the chorus and bridge. Ghosts, a hard track with a very melodic bridge captures a more ambient side of WCAR for a brief moment before they bring back their heavy chorus filled with double bass and crash hits. Present, Future, and Past is a track that is reminiscent of something that would belong on their Dreams EP. It’s very heavy and in-your-face kind of track.

Smack dab in the middle of this record is Never Let Me Go, a hard rock track that is predominantly clean on vocals. It feels like it belongs on their sophomore album Understanding What’ We’ve Grown to Be, which is never a bad thing since it was an amazing album. Hope, the band’s first single off of this album, comes up next. It is a crowd pleaser and a motivational song that reminds you never give up. It’s a pretty solid song, but then again, it’s a single and it should be nothing but solid. Tell Me Now feels like a standard We Came As Romans song, and A Moment feels like it’s going to be the next anthem their fans shout out during their concerts. It has a very anthemic feel and I can tell it is going to be one for the crowd. I Am Free is a very open, positive track. David shows off his vocals on this track. This track really stands out, and is tied with Never Let Me Go for my favorite track on this album. The album closes up with Through the Darkest Dark and the Brightest Bright, a typical post-hardcore track stating that they will always move forward and never forget where they came from.

My Opinion:

I’ll start off with the positive. David’s vocals on this album made the album ten times better than I could have ever expected. I was not expecting him to sing so it took me by surprise, but his range and vocal ability quickly grew on me. The band still has the same tight rhythm as always, something I’ve always admired. They keep thing fresh in the rhythm section and the lead guitar (if there even is one), and the keys create beautiful melodies that make the songs sound full. The lyrics are also positive and refrain from the terrible lyrics I have seen from other bands. They try to inspire their fans and motivate them by sending them the message that they are not alone, something I admire in an age where lyrics are losing value.

With all of that in mind, I’ll progress to the not so positive. This album did not break any boundaries musically. I am not stating that We Came As Romans set out to break boundaries and blow everyone out of the way, but if they tried to do so, they failed. The tracks kind of blended in together with tracks such as Tell Me Now and A Moment blending into one track for me. I felt they should have added more keys into the album to fill out the higher range more because it feels really bottom heavy. I get that the songs are meant to be “in-your-face, shake-the-ground” tracks at times, but it helps to level it off at some points. As previously stated, the band didn’t break boundaries. It sounds very generic and although the lyrics are positive, they get kind of stale pretty fast. I felt their previous album was better sonic-ly and it had a larger variety in terms of tracks. In addition, I really didn’t like the quality of the unclean vocals Present, Future, and Past. It sounded like it was low quality and not mastered. I am also not a big fan of the vocal drops that were in the song. I feel that it’s a cheap, over done way to transition to the next part of a song. I would give this album a 6/10. There was definitely much to be desired when it came to this album.