In This Moment – A Star-Crossed Wasteland Review

In This Moment // A Star-Crossed Wasteland
Rating: 1.0/5.0 —Every time you play this record a Metal God dies…
Label: Century Media
Websites: myspace.com/inthismoment
Release Dates: EU: 12.07.2010 | US: 07.13.2010

So I admit, I’ve never heard SoCal pop rockers In This Moment before. This review will be completely devoid of comparisons to their last two records. Nor will it be filled with witty insights into how the band has changed over their time and whether or not this is a darker record (of course, every new record is the darkest, heaviest, etc., that any band has ever done, so trust the bio about as far as you can throw Arnold Schwarzneger). No, this is going to pretty much be a tirade about how much I really don’t like this album at all or the style of music or basically anything about this at all except for Maria’s clean singing voice, which is very good. You are warned. Don’t throw a fit in the comments because I hate your favorite band: I’ve already warned you. If you read past the jump then it’s your own fucking fault.

So wow, In This Moment sucks. This may be the shortest review I ever write because it’s pretty easy to sum up. In This Moment is pop rock, plain and simple. There is nothing even remotely heavy or raw about what they’re doing except for Maria’s screams which are a lot more annoying than heavy most of the time. The riffs are simple nu metal influenced (or I guess hardcore now) riffs that are so simple that they could be played by any breed of ape (not just homo sapiens sapiens) and have been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times before in the basements across America. While there may be a few happy moments of guitar solos or a melody or two that stand out from the herd, for the most part this is totally crap.

The production is fantastic. But I guess, since it’s pop rock there’s not much to comment on there. Though, really, I don’t like the guitar tone at all. It sounds really boxy and weird. But, of course, the vocals are just hyper, hyper, hyper overproduced. I hope this isn’t ’cause Maria can’t sing (’cause then apparently the only thing she offers the band is the ability to be commodified as a porn doll, honestly, when will women in metal be allowed to just be band members and not masturbation objects!?), and has more to do with the fact that the producer (who produced Ozzy and Five Finger Death Punch) is being paid to overproduce this band: so overproduce them he will!

The song writing is banal, contrived and crappy. I was unimpressed with the sappy ballads (“World in Flames”, for example, made me heave up my lunch). I was especially unimpressed with the sappy hardcore screaming love duet (this is not a joke) which popped up on “The Promise”, quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life (aside from Sonic Syndicate and Ravage of course, but close!) and because I feel like I have to be fair, I even forced myself through it more than once. Oh, there’s a talky cowboy song, too, which is also just lame and irritating. Holy crap. Talking over music stopped being OK in 1950 when everyone thought it was too cheesy THEN. I’m pretty sure that talking over music is punishable by marriage in some countries! The guitar work is occasionally interesting, but most of the riffs are “chug chug chug chugchugchug” that you expect from this kind of metalcore influenced poo. And then the when they do break out guitar solos, they sound like they belong on a butt rock album (see: sappy ballad “World in Flames”).

The only reason you should buy In This Moment’s new record is because you want an example of everything that is wrong with the commercial metal in 2010. Honestly, I can’t even understand who listens to this shit. It just drives me completely insane and unlike other annoying records where I can sort of understand the appeal (Mnemic for example), this one I just don’t get. Have at it if it’s your thing, but I would never recommend this to fans of music that actually has any kind of heart, soul or I dunno, shame.

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