Think of All That Remains as the Testament or Exodus of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. While not necessarily getting the constant accolades like their peers in Killswitch Engage or Lamb Of God, All That Remains continually defy the odds getting greater and greater with each release.
Such is the case with their seventh album, The Order of Things. Going greater also means leaving the familiar behind as the band enlisted Josh Wilbur (Lamb Of God, Gojira) to helm the boards in place of Killswitch Engage’s Adam D who had produced four of the six previous releases. The beauty of All That Remains has always been the range of songs they deliver with each release and, if anything, Wilbur pushed the sound to new extremes as The Order of Things soars to new accessible highs (The gorgeous “For You”) while also crashing to even heavier lows (“No Knock”).
Phil Labonte is still a vocalist to be reckoned with and utterly incomparable in today’s metal world. His gruff, impassioned voice makes each syllable mean that much more as is the case on some TOoT highlights like “The Greatest Generation” or “Victory Lap”. Adding to the texture this time is bassist Jeanne Sagan who provides more backing vocals than before to add layers to Labonte’s words.
The whole of All That Remains step up their collective game on album number seven. Whether they’re going for the jugular on a headbanging track like “Pernicious”, thrashing away on “Bite My Tongue” (Check out Jason Costa’s ludicrous drumming along with Oli Herbert and Mike Martin’s jazzy breakdown here) or causing a sea of Bic’s to be held high on the aforementioned “For You”, The Order of Things considerably brings All That Remains to a new level.
The Order of Things is out through Razor & Tie on February 24th. You can pre-order the album and check out the just announced tour dates with In Flames and Wovenwar here.