A LIFE ONCE LOST “Hunter”
I’ve probably used the word “juggernaut” a little too liberally in the past in describing heavy bands, but A LIFE ONCE LOST definitely qualifies for the designation. Hunter is a seriously massive slab of technical metalcore. Using its pre-packaged imagery, Hunter is much more powerful than an end-game of shoot to kill. This album is far beyond “sniper-style” – it’s more in the vein of a grenade attack. Pull the pin and an explosion ripples from the sound system. As one of the premier metalcore bands favoring a methodical, disciplined, and technical approach to crafting music, A LIFE ONCE LOST draws inevitable comparisons to the handiwork of Sweden’s behemoths, MESHUGGAH. But in this case, comparisons are just comparisons, and the two bands in their current states couldn’t be heading off in farther directions. While MESHUGGAH has embraced a more experimental edge, even tinkering around with some electronics on its most recent album Catch Thirty-Three, A LIFE ONCE LOST has welded its precision-based songwriting to blow-out-the-windows sonic devestation. Rarely does an album come along that makes me take pause so I can feel the rattling of my apartment, and have such not be solely because the engineer decided to give the bass pedal an extra thump. Hunter has raw power emitting from all angles. Be it the twin stomping guitars of Douglas Sabolick and Robert Carpenter, the merciless drumming of Justin Graves, the rumbling bass playing of Nicholas Frasca, or the gravel-in-a-blender vocals of Robert Meadows, A LIFE ONCE LOST charge like a battering ram. One element that takes Hunter into next-level territory is the handful of gnarly guitar solos that adorn the eleven tracks to this album. As pulverizing as the chugging guitars are, the solos not only flesh out the band’s seismic visions, but create memorable markers among the thunderous advances. To quote ESPN’s Stuart Scott, Hunter is an epic “Badookadunk.” If the whole tech-metal thing already bores you, A LIFE ONCE LOST is not likely to cause you reverse course, but for those who appreciate the kind of controlled detonation that a band like this delivers, Hunter is cream-of-the-crop stuff.
Ferret
