My Ransomed Soul

Trilateral

Trilateral has bite. I appreciate that in an album. It sounds vicious. It has the soul of passion and activism. The lyrics are direct. But something didn’t seem right to me. I suppose my first gripe started with the packaging. It’s entirely uninspired. It’s semi-opaque geometry over nature shot. Go ahead and try the combination at home on Photoshop. The execution is spot on, and, as I’ll argue, so is the music. But if the artistic vision is somehow indicative of the authenticity of the album, I would allow that criticism.

The album is packed with reusable themes and imagery, and My Ransomed Soul plays their part in this script well. The production is clean. The scream is the exact scream throughout the entire record. The music is carefully constructed, but it’s putting together pieces from different puzzles, and the result is mediocrity.

The intro riff in “Monarch” is killer. It’s heavy and brash and leap-frogs the song into a two-step with an appropriate breakdown. When they’re in this element, they thrive. There’s a little more diversity within a smaller amount of time, and their songwriting can carry the length of the track. The differences wane shortly into the album, though; some of the earlier tracks on the record (“Revolt”) could use a little more wrenches throw at its tires to force it to new levels.

That seems to be My Ransomed Soul’s curse: pantomiming the same dramatic turns most metalcore albums take. I don’t even feel like I need to see them live to see the part where they all turn back-to-front and bounce for a breakdown. They’re good at what they do, but it’s been done.