With One Last Breath -The Fearless Ones
Hailing from Yorkshire, With One Last Breath are set to release their debut album The Fearless Ones on Small Town Records with a follow-up tour running through the UK in May. The band have set themselves the ambition of blending heaviness and melody, which does indeed shine through the sound created by this Metal five piece.
The Storm is the album opener, and the song intro evokes an emotionally driven atmosphere with its combination of soaring keyboards and thundering drums. It's a really engaging opener, with clean and screamed vocals interweaving well, as the band crashes in and takes up the theme.
The title track The Fearless Ones has some hard hitting ensemble playing and a very stirring anthemic quality, accompanied by an affecting set of lyrics, describing in equal measure yearning and despair.Hell We Create is one of the most striking tracks on the album, with some great breakdowns, keyboard fills, and a real emotional passion in the playing and vocals.
The band then, clearly do what they do really well, though there is room to wonder if there is something perhaps a little limiting about the metalcore type approach that appears to influence their sound, with the band citing the artists they like as including Asking Alexandria and Bullet For My Valentine. At times on this album, one senses the focus on the metalcore structure holds back some of the potential that is evidently here. Tracks like Broken with its wonderfully lyrical guitar solo, and From Wreckage I'm Reborn with its heavy dash of death metal influence, show some intriguing and innovative directions this band might develop further, which would break them into some interesting and distinctive territory Metal wise.
So this is a promising album with bags of potential at work considering it is a debut. Future output from With One Last Breath should definitely be interesting particularly if the band can start breaking out a little from some of their initial musical influences and exploring avenues they are clearly capable of mastering.