Last year, Minnesota’s Your Memorial dropped one of the year’s best metalcore records, Christian or otherwise.  And since then Facedown Records has struggled with a bit of staleness with their subsequent releases and even lost one of their best bands, Sleeping Giant, to another label. Well, Your Memorial is here as the savior to Facedown Records, and once again drop a damn fine metalcore record, that’s as heavy as it is gorgeous and uplifting.

The backbone is intact as Your Memorial are still heavily rooted in the shimmery heft of  Misery Signals, mixed with slightly more post rock, atmospheric elements. Yes, there are clean vocals amid the throaty bellows. Yes, there are acoustic interludes and bridges amid the heaving, chugging riffs. But it just all comes together for a moving metal sermon and Your Memorial are simply masters of their craft regardless of the religious nature.

Armed with a burly but crisp production (including a drum sound to die for)  the band deftly shifts from lurching, stuttering layered metal core (i.e. “Eternity”,”Anthem”) to graceful clean segues that invoke real feeling. From the moving  orchestral/spoken word intro of “Transfiguration” ( the music playing behind the spoken work is simply gorgeous) to hefty album closer “Legacy” the album is chock full of stirring, and legitimate metalcore that will make you mosh and make you feel good doing it.  The introspective moments are well placed within the songs (usually clean vocals or a delicate refrain as heard in title track or the motivational standouts “Shipwreck”,”Transform”and “Trial and Triumph”), by way of interludes like “Substance of Things Hoped For” and “Evidence of Things Yet Unseen”  or even an epic 6 minute hymnal track in the penultimate “Cadence For a King” (which would have been better served as the album closer in my opinion).

Like a new preacher taking over a tired, run down congregation,  Facedown Records needed this release. Christian metal needed this release, as lately, both have simply relied on cookie cutter releases that lack any true musical conviction, with their religious messages wrapped in cliches and copy cat bands. Bands like Lo, There Do I See My Brother and Your Memorial are truly moving and even to an atheist like, inspirational.

[Visit the band's website]

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