Album Review: Killswitch Engage - 'Killswitch Engage'

3 July 2009 | 12:54 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Metalcore’s poster boys are back.

More Killswitch Engage More Killswitch Engage

The old adage ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’ has seemingly served Killswitch Engage well throughout their ten year career. Album number five is much of the same. The Massachusetts crew are one of those few bands that do not need to reinvent the wheel with each new release. A couple of subtle musical variations to their trademark sound still produces a better result than 90% of other bands out there today.  
The metalcore quintet has aptly self-titled their fifth studio release. The album distils everything the Killswitch Engage sound has represented over the past decade neatly into an eleven-track offering. Beginning with the fast-paced ‘Never Again’ the album quickly goes full circle, launching into the more rock friendly single ‘Starting Over’ before returning to the thrash inspired ‘The Forgotten’.   
Other notable tracks such as ‘Save Me’, which channels the likes of Soilwork on album ‘A Predator’s Portrait’, highlight well the distinctive vocal tones of singing behemoth Howard Jones whilst concurrently emphasising the tag-team guitar riffs of Dutkiewicz and Stroetzel.

Produced by Brendan O’Brien whose production credits read like a history of rock (Bob Dylan, Rage Against the Machine & Bruce Springsteen) the album revels in a sound that unreservedly pays just as much attention to the death metal/hardcore inspired riffs as it does to the melodic chorus lines. Commonly referred to as one of the main leaders in the tabloid created genre, ‘New Wave of American Heavy Metal’, Killswitch Engage stay true to their geographical origins. That is to say, their sound has a distinctively American feel to it as opposed to borrowing too heavily from the Gothenburg or even British sound.  

This album is sure to satisfy the teenage kid who is expanding their metal tastes beyond that of Slipknot just as much as it is sure to please the flanny-wearing bogan who is looking for an album to bang their head to. 

Killswitch Engage’s second eponymous release is the equal of any previous efforts. Heavy, melodic, fast and slow – the album blends all aspects of the music spectrum effectively into forty minutes of solid metal. 

  1. Never Again
  2. Starting Over
  3. The Forgotten
  4. Reckoning
  5. The Return
  6. A Light in a Darkened World
  7. Take Me Away
  8. I Would Do Anything
  9. Save Me
  10. Lost
  11. This is Goodbye