Review: The Plot in You- Could You Watch Your Children Burn

Hey guys! I hope your new years was fun and that 2013 has started off well.  I am sorry I have not been blogging for a while.  I was busy over the break and in early January I was on choir tour, but now I am back and ready to take on my first blog post of the year, my review of The Plot In You's new album Could You Watch Your Children Burn.

I was excited to find this album while I was on choir tour.  We stopped at a mall for lunch and I decided to look around, even though I knew this album did not come out until today I looked in the CD section of that mall's Hot Topic just to see what was there.  To my surprise and delight they had a copy of the album.  I quickly bought the album and was excited to listen to it and get a review out the day the album was released, instead of a day or so after like most of my reviews.

I first heard about The Plot In You when I saw an add for their debut album First Born in a issue of Revolver Magazine.  The add said that this band was for fans of The Devil Wears Prada and Whitechapel, when I saw that I thought "Hey I'm fans of both of those bands, I'll go check them out!"  I was pleasantly surprised by First Born, although it did not make my top 10 albums for that year I liked the unique guitar tone, vocal style, and breakdowns the band packed into 10 tracks (the drummer throws in ghost notes on one of their breakdowns, that was something I never heard before, not to mention the rhythms on the breakdowns were more complex and syncopated than what is commonly found in the metalcore genre ).  It really separated them from other bands in the metalcore genre.  I could see where the add got Prada and Whitechapel comparisons.  When vocalist Landon Tewers uses his growl vocals he sounds similar to Phil from Whitechapel and when he sings clean his vocals sound familiar to the bass player from Devil Wears Prada.  Even though First Born was released in 2011, it seemed like a long two years between that and this new album so I was anxious to see what The Plot In You had in store.

When I picked up a copy of Could You Watch Your Children Burn (still don't know why there isn't a question mark at the end of that statement), it said that it was for fans of Whitechapel and The Acacia Strain.  Well I knew about the Whitechapel comparisons but I was excited to hear how they drew on The Acacia Strain for influence.  To my disappointment I could barley hear any comparison to either bands.  At first listen I thought maybe the band switched vocalists, which would explain the different vocal styles.  Well my theory was incorrect, it was still Landon from First Born singing on this album.  Although on this album he seemed to rely more on his clean vocals instead of his Whitechapel influenced vocals.  Every once in a while those vocals would find their way to the spotlight, but that moment would not last long because then Landon would switch to his clean vocals or a more mid range to higher growl sound.

As I said above, Landon uses more clean vocals on this album than on First Born, this was something I did not like.  Now I am not trying to say that I don't like clean vocals, I like lots of metalcore bands and I understand that switching between clean and harsh vocals is a signature aspect of the genre.  But when your first album has a heavy use of harsh vocals and a light use of clean vocals, don't expect me to be surprised when you pull a 180 on me and start being light on the harsh vocals and heavy on the clean vocals.  Even more so, when Landon does use harsh vocals its almost like he is trying too hard, as if he needed the harsh vocals to please fans.  On First Born the harsh vocals seemed to flow more naturally.    

As for The Acacia Strain influence? Little to none, there are some influence in the breakdowns (take the break down in the song "Troll"for example).  In my opinion though I don't think this album has enough influence to merit a "For the fans of The Acacia Strain" label on the front.

There are some redeeming qualities to this album, every once in a while the sound from First Born peaks its head out for a brief moment in the spotlight (the song "Bible Butcher" is a good example of that), some of the break downs are particularly brutal (the one in "Fiction Religion" is crazy good!), and the lyrics on this album continue the brutal themes that the band had on First Born.  Although were the lyrics First Born was about a kid struggling in life while he is being abused, the lyrics on Could You Watch Your Children Burn are just plain mad, stretching a range of topics from rape, to religion, and relationships.

I guess my main beef with this album is that it seemed as if The Plot In You took everything that made them unique on First Born and decided to go in the complete opposite direction.  Now I'm not trying to say I hate when bands change their sound, most bands change their sound in a good way (look at Mastodon, they are still one of my favorite bands and their sound on The Hunter is really different from the sound on Leviathan) but when a band goes backwards with their sound, then I don't like it.  First Born allowed The Plot In You to separate themselves from the pack of cookie cutter metalcore bands these days, but Could You Watch Your Children trips them up and flings them back into the pack they once were separated from.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Thanks guys!
-Zach

Don't forget if you have an artist you want me to talk about or an album you want me to review tweet me @zachktheanimal or leave a comment below!