The Plot In You - Could You Watch Your Children Burn

When The Plot In You released First Born I remember being pretty impressed with their version of metalcore that steps the line into Deathcore every now and again. While it wasn’t the best metalcore album I had ever heard, it was better than plenty of other generic bands out there.  It was angry metalcore infused with some catchier moments. With could You Watch Your Children Burn Not a whole lot has changed in terms of sound, it’s still the angry metalcore we got on First Born but they’ve made a little bit of progress with this new album. The new album has dropped some of the breakdowns in favor of more chunky riffs and better overall writing.

The album overall has a great atmosphere, which while maybe leaning towards angsty emotions, it’s thankfully put more into the angry side of things instead of the typical whiny clean vocals. The atmosphere is carried throughout the whole album, save for one track that is really the only major problem I have with this album. The song is ‘Sober And Soulless’, and it really doesn’t fit this album. It’s not really a bad track, but it’s tone doesn’t match the rest of the album at all and it’s intro is far from the style of the album. The rest of the album has this hate-the-world-and-screw-everyone-else tone, but this track seems to turn the finger around and make the tone about how they’ve screwed up. On the one hand it’s a nice departure lyrically, but it might have worked better on an EP or something.  ‘Glad Your Gone’ starts similarly to ‘Sober And Soulless’ but for some reason it doesn’t bother me as much, maybe because it’s the end of the album and ends the album on a more hopeful tone. Which to some extent definitely discredits everything I just said about Sober And Soulless, but it just works better at the end. I also just enjoy the chorus on ‘Glad Your Gone’ a bit more.

Anyways, the rest of the album is definitely enjoyable. They seemed to have taken some inspirations from Slipknot’s industrial metal leaning towards nu-metal tones, which to most metal fans nowadays may drive you away, but trust me it’s better than the genre sounds.

Another highlight of the album is the vocals, the cleans aren’t typical whiny auto-tuned vocals, and they aren’t a huge part of the album anyhow, and the screamed vocals range from mostly mid-ranged screams to great low growls used to accent things here and there. The lyrics, while as I mentioned are a tad bit angsty here and there, do feel pretty personal as they did on First Born, which adds a good layer to the music.

Overall, fans of metalcore should find Could You Watch Your Children Burn A solid entry into the bands career, and if you liked their debut this album should not be a disappointment. This band continues to prove to be one of the better offerings from Rise Records.