{"id":30899,"date":"2013-07-22T17:15:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T22:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=30899"},"modified":"2014-02-08T08:36:54","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T13:36:54","slug":"these-hearts-yours-to-take-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2013\/these-hearts-yours-to-take-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"These Hearts | Yours To Take<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Mark Allen<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"TheseIt\u2019s called pop-core. Take the sugary hooks and squeaky-clean vocals of bands like Blink 182, merge them with the growls, screams, and breakdowns of hardcore, and presto, you\u2019ve got yourself a nice, shiny, pre-packaged subgenre to sell to the masses. Sort of like melodic metal-core, but with more of a pop-punk flavor.<\/p>\n

These Hearts exhibit a slick knowledge of what works within the pop-core format. Granted, this kind of thing will not find credibility with all headbangers, but fans who flock to this kind of stuff should find enough value in Yours To Take<\/em> to justify plopping down their hard-earned pennies. It\u2019s certainly better than their debut full-length which was reviled by critics and patrons alike. Seriously, the dogs in Michael Vick\u2019s fighting circuit took less abuse than These Hearts did over that debut.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the band did not let the sometimes-cruel criticism crush them and came back better than ever. They learned from their mistakes, so this new album avoids most of the pitfalls that polluted their previous project. Borrowing a page from A Day To Remember, they have crafted a heavy, bouncy, energetic record that probably won\u2019t set the charts on fire but could certainly net them some new fans. This is one of those albums that lack those \u201cOMG!\u201d songs, but neither do any of the songs make you think, \u201cPOS.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band has some serious chops, but sometimes the pop-punk elements seem to clash with the hardcore components. Mash-up metal is frequently an odd beast and putting pop-punk sing-along choruses on top of crushing \u201c-core\u201d music might just be one of the oddest. One minute These Hearts are laying down some chugging riffs and growling like Beelzebub with hunger pangs; the next they\u2019re belting out a hooky chorus with nasally-clean vocals that seem better suited to the next Green Day disc.<\/p>\n

Luckily, it\u2019s easy to tell if this album is for you or not\u2014just listen to the first song, \u201cThis is Love.\u201d With its brutal bass heaviness, thick riffs, throaty growls, gang vocals, and cleanly catchy chorus, the track is a perfect encapsulation of everything These Heart is about. Hate this first song and you\u2019ll hate the rest of the album; like this tune and you\u2019ll pretty much like them all. <\/p>\n

These are tough times for any band throwing their hat\u2014or guitars, drums, microphones\u2014into the mega-bloated \u201ccore\u201d metal genre. These Hearts have not yet evolved to the point where they deserve to ascend to the pinnacle of the pop-core pile, but they have shown such drastic improvement between albums that they definitely deserve another shot. As long as you expect \u201cgood\u201d and \u201csolid\u201d rather than \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cawesome,\u201d you shouldn\u2019t be disappointed. <\/p>\n

Genre: Pop-Core<\/p>\n

Band:
\nRyan Saunders (vocals)
\nIsaiah Folk (drums)
\nDaryl Van Beek (guitar)
\nKyle Colby (guitar)
\nTyler Rice (bass)<\/p>\n

Track Listing
\n1. This is Love (feat. Bert Poncet)
\n2. The Inconvenience
\n3. Psycho
\n4. Miserable
\n5. Been Through Hell
\n6. Last Man Alive
\n7. Birds of a Feather
\n8. Undecided Story
\n9. War (feat. Mattie Montgomery)
\n10. LOTR
\n11. Never Mind Me<\/p>\n

Webpage: www.facebook.com\/thesehearts<\/p>\n

Label: Victory Records<\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Allen – Senior Columnist — It\u2019s called pop-core. Take the sugary hooks and squeaky-clean vocals of bands like Blink 182, merge them with the growls, screams, and breakdowns of hardcore, and presto, you\u2019ve […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8704],"tags":[336,334,1536],"class_list":{"0":"post-30899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2013","8":"tag-cd","9":"tag-review","10":"tag-victory-records"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}