Abandoned by Bears – The Years Ahead

[schema type=”review” name=”Abandoned by Bears – The Years Ahead” description=”Label: Victory Records” author=”Juho Karila” pubdate=”2016-04-29″ ]

Abandoned by Bears is a swedish band, hailing from Malmö which mixes pop-punk with metalcore in a way which results in a seamless uninon of shamelessly pop-ish clean singing and most respective growling and shouting. “The Years Ahead” is their second release.

At first glance, “The Years Ahead” is really energetic and balancing somewhere in between modern pop-punk and metalcore in a way that I can’t really tell which it is more. The songs are shifting from light and catchy melodies to heavy and crushing guitar-drum hammering in a blink of an eye, without compromising the songs’ integrity or feeling glued or forced. The band itself calls their style as easycore and clearly is their thing, which works really well in what it is meant for.

As the first beats of the opening track “Search & Find” rolls in after the intro, it becomes clear that easy approach is what the band has been intending, possibly to reach out to people outside the metal circles. Followed by “Good Terms” the song introduces us more to the metal side of the band, which vividly reminds of Periphery with its technical djent riffs. The light and catchy punk melodies are still strongly present to dig a smile out of even more serious metalhead.

“Out of Bounds” takes a more progressive approach, with being clearly heavier than the previous ones and reminding even more of the aforementioned masters of djent and clarifying that there aren’t moments to catch a breather.

Despite being chaotic with it’s upbeat and complex songs without clear song structure, Abandoned by Bears have created truly amazing album full of energy and really technical arrangements that gives every bandmember moments to shine with their skills. It’s partially hard to tell when we’re in the chorus and what is the verse of the song but the arrangements are so seamless that it doesn’t feel exhausting or overwhelming when the light, pop, melodies and singing work together perfectly with the heavy crunchy guitar riffs and aggressive growls.

The 4th and 5th songs really sums up what the album is all about. The former, “For the Sake of Nothing” is stripped down of almost all metal in it’s pop-punkness without compromising in speed or intensity and the latter, “True Colors” is the heaviest song of the album.

While “The Years Ahead” isn’t probably the first album I’ll put on Spotify when searching for music to make my day, it’s a really expertly made and great good-mood album and I wouldn’t miss a chance to see the songs performed live and witness how the band converts their energy into a show. It’s a hard bite to swallow but listening to it over and over again will be worthwhile because each songs are filled with various hooks to catch interest and keep it up from the very beginning to the end; an amazing album by a great band who knows what they’re doing!

Line up:
Fredric Andersson – Vocals
Leon Ekelund – Vocals
Jacob Devinder – Guitar
Gustav Eriksson – Bass
Max Fahlman – Drums

Tracklist: 1. Search & Find 2. Good Terms 3. Out Of Bounds 4. For The Sake Of Nothing 5. True Colors 6. Good Luck Next Year 7. Bookmarks 8. No Rush 9. Void Filler 10. Act As If 11. Bad Luck 12. Compromise

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