Blast from the past albums #12: KILLSWITCH ENGAGE - Killswitch Engage (2000, Ferret Music)

In this series of posts I'll discuss an album I picked up as a teenager or my early 20s and haven't listened to in a very long time.

Let me just start by saying I'm not a fan of metalcore. When Parkway Drive were announced to headline the Saturday night at Bloodstock 2019, I felt betrayed (I'm that much of a sad bastard). Yep, I'm one of those guys. Maybe if metalcore had been one of my first major exposures to metal as a whole, then I'd be more into it. But it wasn't, and there's also something about the metalcore scene in general that feels drastically different to the type of crowds I meet at any heavy/thrash/death/black/power metal gig etc. in a way that I don't want to be a part of. So why the fuck do I have any Killswitch Engage albums in my collection then?! Especially considering the fact I've always hated their cover of Dio's 'Holy Diver' with a burning passion! Well, at some point during my late teens I suddenly decided that I actually kind of liked the song 'My Last Serenade', so I went out and bought their 2002 album Alive or Just Breathing. In fact, Alive or Just Breathing in general is a metalcore album I can somewhat tolerate. Some of the melodic parts annoy me, but the songwriting on that record can be pretty impressive. Either way, it made me pick up their debut very soon after. And guess what? Until now I hadn't touched it for about a million years.

I can understand why I haven't bothered listening to this album again since I was about 19. Aside from maybe the odd riff, the first 3 tracks were immediately uncomfortable for me to digest. I'm not saying that because they're bad; in fact, I'll take Killswitch Engage over Bad Omens, Ice Nine Kills, Motionless in White and all the over TikTok generation pop metalcore slop that's popular these days. At least I know well enough that KE actually have credibility within their genre. I'm just saying that they don't settle well with me because they reminded me right away why I'm not a metalcore fan in the first place. It's the whiny, clean and melodic parts that piss me off. Well, that and the vocals as a whole. Jesse Leach definitely suits the music, that much is true - but he's not my cup of tea. The harsh vocals are too high pitched and grating, and not in a black metal way either. His clean singing voice is actually rather good, I'd just prefer not hear that, well, emo style of singing in my metal thank 'ya very much. But you know what? As a metalcore vocalist he's probably great. Talented for sure, just not my kind of vocalist. One thing I will give the band credit for is the blatantly obvious hardcore side of the metalcore sound. 'Irreversal' is built around some really heavy, detuned beatdown hardcore style riffs that remind me of bands like Terror, Strife... maybe even a bit of Biohazard. It makes me question where the "metal" part of "metalcore" comes into it, but at least they've got the "core" side covered!

In all honesty though, most of the album from track 4 onwards actually sounds quite a lot more metal to me. Other than the moody instrumental 'One Last Sunset', they seem to tone down the clean, melodic parts within a lot of the songs later on. Much of the riffing is kind of a blend of groove metal, melodeath and even a touch of thrash here and there, and in general about 60% of the actual music on this album actually sounds good to this metalhead's ears. I'm talkin' to the point where songs like 'Soilborn', 'Rusted Embrace' and 'In the Unblind' would actually sound pretty great with another singer with a completely different vocal style! The riffs are tight and heavy, any of the breakdown-y parts don't sound like pure cringe which I find to be the case with so many modern metalcore bands and there's also enough melody implemented within them that they're memorable too. If I had to pick a favourite song, it's probably 'Numb Sick Eyes'. The harsh vocals are still borderline annoying to me, but Leach's clean vocals combined with the atmospheric backing vox work really well here.

This is undoubtedly a biased post. I admitted at the beginning that I generally don't do metalcore. But this album is a part of my collection, and it certainly does qualify for this post's subject matter! So at the very least, I'm being honest here. I don't find this debut to be totally worthless; like I said, a decent chunk of the music sounds pretty good to me, probably because I don't feel like the instrumentation is even typically metalcore 100% of the time. And I think guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz' (although at this point he was still on drums) relatively raw production is a breath of fresh air from the cleaner tones of their later stuff. But obviously I can't get fully on board with the vocals; I don't find Jesse Leach to be completely unlistenable, but I can only deal with him in small doses. But he's a huge reason why the metalcore vocal style isn't my thing. Overall, this is probably a good album for metalcore fans, but for me it's a "just about tolerable" kind of affair. 95% of metalcore sounds horrid to me, so I guess that's a complement?

Funnily enough, I still wasn't completely done with Killswitch Engage after obtaining this debut and Alive or Just Breathing, 'cos for some reason I also own 2013's Disarm the Descent. I can't remember anything about that album other than the single 'In Due Time'.
Adam's rating: 5/10