SHREDnews

Atreyu continues the story with their fifth studio release album, Congregation Of The Damned which is sure to be a favorite for old and new fans. This Orange County, California band has been tearing up the music scene since 1998. From 2001-2006 Atreyu was signed to Victory Records and recorded their first three albums with the label. Then in 2007 they landed in their current home with Hollywood Records where they recorded Lead Sails Paper Anchor and Congregation Of The Damned. The band currently consists of Alex Varkatzas (vocals), Brandon Saller (drums), Marc McKnight (bass), Dan Jacobs (guitar), and Travis Miguel (guitar).  If you like that melody mixed with pure hard core rock then these guys will once again give you just what you want with no disappointments.

The opening song, Stop! Before It’s Too Late And We’ve Destroyed It All might hurt your brain just trying to remember the title, but the song itself defiantly makes up for the wordy title. The song opens the album with a fast and in your face intro and only gets better from there. The music almost has a haunting underlying quality to it that creates a nice melody at the same time as giving you that good “smash things up” feel to the song. The title track, Congregation Of The Damned again gives us Alex’s wonderful voice balanced with an almost melodic hard rock sound that I feel Atreyu has perfected. The guitar parts in this really tie this song together to blend the harder parts of the song with the softer parts and give the song a wonderful sense of balance.

Coffin Nails brings the tempo down just enough for a small break if you’ve really been shredding along with these guys. The intro really catches a hold of you with the quick rhythm and then leads nicely into the rest of the song. The percussion fits perfectly with the way Alex snarls out the lyrics. The song exudes a dark feeling that sometimes you just have to have in a song. It feeds the darkness so to speak. Coffin Nails and the next song, Black Days Begin go together like they were born on the same dark night. The tempo picks up slightly with this song in the beginning and speeds up further as the song goes along. You want to scream along with Alex and march in unison to the beat as you throw your hands up. The repetition at the end drills into your head and leaves it echoing as the next song, Gallows kicks in and almost tricks you into thinking you are still listening to Black Days Begin. Gallows picks up the tempo even further and breaks us out of the almost lull of the last two songs. Alex again balances singing and screaming perfectly in this song to keep any fan enjoying this song from beginning to end.

The first single off the album, Storm To Pass starts out with a gentle, soft sound and quickly kicks it into overdrive. It almost gives the feel of a building storm. The song is defiantly a great choice for a first single to introduce people to this great new album. About two thirds of the way through the song Alex turns on the scream and then the guitar really kicks it up a notch. It’s like the downpour we expect from the beginning has finally come upon us with a torrential downpour of maddening ear candy. And after we survive the storm we get tossed into a riot about to begin with, You Were The King, Now You’re Unconscious. The sound of a crowd on the verge of raging really sets the tone of the entire song. Atreyu has created an epic song with this one. It’s a perfect combination of chaos and melodic harmonies that can do nothing but please the ear of any fan of these guys. The song Wait For You drops the tempo down to a nice love ballad to close out the album. I always find it nice to see a hardcore band to prove they can play slow love songs also, so I find this very refreshing.  The Piano intro really shows off how talented these guys really are. It’s almost as if at the very end they want to prove to us all that they can do any thing they want and don’t forget it.

This album really goes beyond all previous albums. It seems to me that Atreyu has really found them selves as a band and perfected everything they stand for musically. With this fifth album they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are here to stay. This entire album blends screams, melodic vocals, thrashing guitars, and beautiful underlying harmonies wonderfully. The sound that Atreyu has perfected with this album can be enjoyed by fans of many styles of music. Yes, it is a hardcore album at its center, but at the same time they really have blended in just enough of a melodic side to appeal to more than just your every day hardcore fan. If you haven’t picked up this album yet, do yourself a favor and grab it and listen to it from start to finish. I promise you will not be disappointed.

http://www.myspace.com/atreyurock

For Fans Of: Bullet For My Valentine, Hawthorne Heights, All That Remains, As I Lay Dying

Top Tracks: Wait For You, You Were The King, Now You’re Unconscious, Congregation Of The Damned

Rating: 9/10

Track list:

1. Stop! Before It’s Too Late And We’ve Destroyed It All
2. Bleeding Is A Luxury
3. Congregation Of The Damned
4. Coffin Nails
5. Black Days Begin
6. Gallows
7. Storm To Pass
8. You Were The King, Now You’re Unconscious
9. Insatiable

10.  So Wrong

11.  Ravenous

12.  Lonely

13.  Wait For You

Sign up for our RSS feed, twitter, and facebook to get up to date news from shred news