The Color Morale Know Hope Quick Album Review

Album Review

The Color Morale

Know Hope (2013)

1) Burn Victims

2) Smoke And Mirrors

3) Learned Behaviour

4) Living Breathing Something

5) Strange Comfort

6) In Light In Me

7) Silver Lining

8) Steadfast

9) Hole Hearted

10) Saviorself

11) Have.Will
12) Never Enders

Since discovering The Color Morale's previous effort, My Devil In Your Eyes, they've regularly visited my ears as a break from the over saturated "as-much-autotune-as-possible"tunes of modern metalcore and hardcore. Not that that's entirely a bad thing, but when you hear something that deviates from the cookie-cutters it makes you sit down and pay attention.

Know Hope sees The Color Morale tightening up their sound and delivering an album full of memorable hooks, heavy breakdowns and more meaningful lyrics (thank your respective religious leader!). Oh and there's also some mad play-on-words.

The main thing that sticks out for me are the vocals. In a genre filled with either no clean singing, or high-register clean chorus', it's refreshing to hear another Jesse Leach, where raw emotion and "message" take precedent over technical skill. Garret Rapp delivers a big range of sounds, from Johnny Craig-esqe cleans, to deep low rumbles, mid-range power screams and whatever the f##k you call the vomiting/multiple knife wound victim screaming in agony episode in opening track Burn Victims. I have no idea what he's doing...no idea. Now I know I'm not alone when I say that one of the pleasures in listening to this music is the awesome one-liners that lead in to breakdowns, my favourite here is from Silver Lining - "...the devil you know...is better than the devil you don't" and...breakdown ensues - awesome.

Instrumentally, I was happy to hear them shy away from overused rhythmic patterns and instead favour more complex and interesting patterns, with plenty of guitar layering. The only downside is occasionally this can split focus a little too much, leaving the vocals to fend for themselves, and creating a little confusion in the overall sound. There is also a great use of groove throughout the album, plus a few high-energy punk moments to keep the heart beat quickening.

After multiple listens to this album, I get the same impression as I did with Woe, Is Me's Number[s]. There are memorable moments, but the full effect comes from listening to the album in its entirety. With the exception of a couple of tracks, the memorable parts were just that, parts, not full songs and not memorable enough to make you remember the title of the track or pick it straight away when the song starts. There is a major downside to this, as there is great joy in hearing the first couple of seconds of a song and instantly know what you're in for.

This is a solid album and one that will definitely inflict neck-pain on those long car trips. I think the best  is yet to come from The Color Morale, the difference between My Devil... and Know Hope shows a big improvement and honing of their craft. If you're already a fan, you'll love this instalment. If you're new to The Color Morale, or to the genre entirely, you should do yourself a great service and pick up    Know Hope.

Know Hope - 7/10

Only have time for a song or two?

'Strange Comfort', 'Saviorself'

Previous Albums

My Devil In Your Eyes (2011)

We All Have Demons (2009)