Fallstar - Backdraft

I love Facedown Records. And their releases and line-up over the last two years has shown an obvious, and much needed, shift in heavy music. But occasionally you get a band and record to remind you that modern metalcore is still very much a thing.

Fallstar's Backdraft is just that record. There are a couple moments on Backdraft that I really like. Eclipse is a great short song that holds everything that I love about Converge. Drags, Drugs, and Bones is a really good metalcore song. Yes it's formulaic, but it's a solid song. Shallow Believer is a solid, hard hitting song.

But Backdraft just doesn't hold up for me. It's a decent metalcore record but it's just a metalcore record. There aren't enough moments on the record for me to really enjoy the songs. It doesn't have the catchiness of Wolves At The Gate's Captors, or the brutality of Oh Sleeper's Children of Fire. It's a middle of the ground metalcore record. Not terrible... Just not all that special.