Source: Album Artwork
Emmure‘s reputation as “the Limp Bizkit of deathcore” is well-deserved. Apart from the bouncy, thudding riffs that make each song indistinguishable from the other, the penchant for snapbacks and ridiculous lyrics; Frankie Palmeri‘s outspoken nature and offensive clothing line make Fred Durst look like Tom Hiddleston. All of this came to a head when the whole band bar Palmeri quit in late 2015, and were replaced early last year with members of the tech-metal movement, chiefly from the now defunct The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza and their guitarist Joshua Travis who went on to form Glass Cloud after Tony Danza split.
This new line-up, and the album that it has given us, proves what most of us already knew about Emmure, namely that the main problem with it is Palmeri. The musical canvas on which Palmeri now paints giant boobs and the words “I don’t give a fuck” has become a great deal more interesting now that musicians who actually know what they’re doing have put it together. The guitar licks and flourishes on Look At Yourself come straight out of the tech scene, and the breakdowns that are still present in basically every song feel a lot more lively and less “the guitar tab for this looks like someone spilt a bowl of Cheerios”.
However it’s Palmeri that’s still letting the side down. Even from the moment his shriek enters on ‘You Asked For It‘ it’s abundantly clear that he hasn’t changed a bit and that even though his band now has a better grasp of how to play their instruments, he’s just going to plod along doing what he’s always done – screaming like someone who’s just learned how to and rapping like someone who’s heard rapping before but whose brain can’t quite work out how to do the really fast bits.
We just wish he’d tell us if he gives a fuck or not. He doesn’t say it enough, so we’re just not sure if he gives a fuck or not. If only he were more clear on whether or not he gives a fuck. It’s keeping us up at night.
All things said and done, Emmure fans are going to love Look At Yourself. It’s the best thing they’ve released in a long time, since either Felony or Speaker Of The Dead depending on how much you rated the latter. ‘Flag Of The Beast‘ and ‘Turtle In A Hare‘ are pretty passable as Emmure songs go, but overall not enough has changed about Emmure for them to now be palatable to the legions of people who found them unbearable originally.
Does Frankie Palmeri give a fuck about this? That remains to be seen.
