Therefore I Am - The Sound of Human Lives Review

Therefore I Am - The Sound of Human Lives

Rating

RIYL

Thrice
Story of the Year
Emery
Evergreen Terrace

Release Date

06/23/2009

Label

Equal Vision

Tracklist

1. Death by Fire
2. Eleven, Seventeen
3. Splinters
4. My Father, the Fatalist
5. For the Sake of Skin
6. It's No Wonder Why
7. The Sound of Human Lives
8. I Am Only an Island
9. Big Blue
10. A Face in the Clouds
11. No Face in the Crowd
12. The Art of Transparency
13. You Leave

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Composing	Firebrandead
Aaron Yarborough	Bill Lohr
Rick Gebhardt

The Sound of Human Lives marks Therefore I Am’s debut for Equal Vision Records, as well as being the band’s first full length in general. There’s not much to say about the group’s back story; they toured consistently, paid their dues, wrote countless songs, and eventually gained the attention of a notable independent label – pretty standard for this style of music.

Therefore I Am plays a mix of hardcore and rock, similar to Thrice’s older material, while having the aggression of Evergreen Terrace but without the traditional open-chord breakdowns. There’s not a whole lot of variety on The Sound of Human Lives but the band pulls off the style fairly well and keeps the music interesting enough to merit more than one spin.

“Death by Fire” opens the album with singer Alex Correia passionately speaking over a musical build that explodes about 45 seconds later into the song’s verse. The standard verse/chorus/verse structure is followed for a little while until a surprisingly heavy rock breakdown part hits and eventually leads back to a chorus that’s layered by melodic leads. Therefore I Am picked a great song to start off the album, but it is misleading in that the aggression seen on this track is never revived at any point during the rest of the album, which is a shame because it seems to be the band’s strongpoint.

Tracks like “Splinters” and “My Father, the Fatalist” provide more solid backing for a strong opening quarter of the album. These songs succeed because Correia focuses more on yelling and screaming instead of singing, creating effective vocal dynamics to keep it interesting. Musically, the songs are similar to “Death by Fire,” with a heavier focus on rock instead of hardcore, effectively using guitar melodies to help carry the songs.

Unfortunately, Therefore I Am can’t keep up the smart songwriting throughout the entire album. The entire middle is terribly boring, despite a few decent vocal melodies here and there to make the songs bearable. The music sounds uninspired, though, and the passion in Correia’s vocals starts to fade and never really returns until the last two tracks, “The Art of Transparency” and “You Leave.”

At this point in their career, Therefore I Am is a band with a ton of potential to become a major player in this genre if they can think outside the box a bit more and use the first few songs on this album as a stepping stone for progression. The Sound of Human Lives provides an adequate introduction to the band, but overall it’s just a mediocre release.

--Nicholas Fritz

Author

Nicholas Fritz

Last updated: 09/29/2009 09:04PM

Comments

Bill Lohr

08/05/2009

06:36AM

Age: 27

Location
Lehigh Valley, PA

Nick, I'm sorry dude but I have to be the first person to yell at you. Well maybe I'll be the only one but I think this release is fantastic. I have been listening to it nonstop for like the last two months. There isn't a track on it I don't like. They aren't groundbreaking whatsoever but they do what they do well in my opinion. They are like a heavier Latterman to me, I don't know... I dig it.