extension, My Ransomed Soul - are just another generic, tight jeans-wearing, drop-tuning metalcore band, but they’re not. Bridges have a remarkable amount of ambience for a band of this type, and buildups to the choruses are cleverly constructed, though they teeter on being formulaic at times. The choruses are indeed simple, but considered from a songwriting perspective, that seems to be calculated to:

 

• Getting the message across. “Obey, fall in line/Become a product of the corporate mind/Submit, always comply/Become content with being blind” is the chorus, which is similar, but not written as well as the opening verse: “We are a bitter generation/Force fed the media’s lies/Taken by misinformation/Controlled by their corporate minds.”
   

• Letting a clever sounding slide melody a la System of a Down envelope your ears. With such veracity, you forget that you’re listening to metalcore

 

The song is obviously guitar-driven, but the drums - particularly the kick - follow the chug pattern of the guitars quite tightly, which is something usually found in groove or djent. The drumming incorporates cleverly-timed stops and rests to break up the monotony of your typical double kick/kick snare patterns of which smaller bands generally find themselves immurement. On top of it all is Brendan Frey’s terrific bark, which constantly drives the song - even when the instrumental bits start to become too bland, repetitive, or stale sounding. Give it a listen, or don’t; but either way, just take my word for it that there’s at least some metalcore bands worth listening to.

 

Baltimore-based metalcore quartet My Ransom Soul released their latest album Trilateral on February 24. The first single from the album, “Mockingbird,” hits heavy, and it’s also one of the best metalcore songs I’ve heard in a while.

 

If you’re expecting some kind of soft piano leading up to a drop-in, stop. “Mockingbird” doesn’t ease you in; it hits hard from the first note, and it doesn’t relent until the song is finished, three-and-a-half minutes later. I honestly thought this band would be the same as all the other metalcore bands I’ve heard, but I was proven wrong. Laden with chugging riffs, you’d think that “Mockingbird” - and by