From Autumn To Ashes - Abandon Your Friends (Vagrant Records) By: Justin Donnelly

In the two years since Long Island hardcore/emo rock quintet released their sophomore effort The Fiction We Live, quite a bit has changed. The most immediate change is the line-up, with the addition of new guitarist Jon Cox and ex-Reggie And The Full Effect bassist Josh Newton joining the ranks of hardcore vocalist Benjamin Perri, guitarist Brian Deneeve and drummer/clean vocalist Francis Mark. Although member changes within the group are nothing new, it goes someway to explaining the completely new direction the band has decided to take on their third full-length album Abandon Your Friends.

In essence, Abandon Your Friends is an album of two halves. Whereas F.A.T.A.’s debut Too Bad You’re Beautiful (Released in 2001) was predominantly aggressive post hardcore based, The Fiction We Live saw a greater melodic direction infiltrating through the heavier material. Now with their third release upon us, the direction of the band is much clearer, with the album distinctly going in two completely different directions. On the one hand, the more hardcore based material is a return to the bands sound on their debut, while the other half of the album is clearly the most melodic emo-rock based material the band have ever recorded, with Mark taking on more than half of the album’s lead vocals.

The opening track and single ‘Where Do You Draw The Line’ is a rousing start to the album, and one of the few examples where both vocalists worth together to provide a contrast between hardcore and emo-rock elements, and is a solid start to the album.‘Inapprope’ on the other hand swings completely in the opposite direction as Mark provides the sing along chorus more in the emo-rock vein.

And it’s this formula that F.A.T.A. interchanges with throughout the album.

Apart from the two tracks that feature a mixture of the two vocalists (‘Jack And Ginger’ and ‘Placentapede’, which incidentally was named by Coheed And Cambria’s drummer Josh Eppard), the bulk of the album is split almost exclusively between Mark and Perri.Of course, depending on which side of F.A.T.A.’s sound is more suited to your tastes will determine how much you like the album, but at the very least, the added diversity between the alternating tracks and styles makes for an interesting listen.

On the heavier side of things, tracks such as ‘The Funny Thing About Getting Pistol Whipped Is...’ and ‘Short For Show’ are the best examples, while on the softer side of things, ‘Streamline’, ‘Sugar Wolf’ and the piano led title track ‘Abandon Your Friends’ manage to exude enough emotion to satisfy fans of the bands emo-rock side.

‘Abandon Your Friends’ will certainly stir up controversy within fans’ opinions, but then given the direction shown on F.A.T.A. last album, the change isn’t such a big surprise.

Abandon Your Friends is a mature and well-rounded effort (A view I tend to learn towards), and one that’ll embraced by some (And possibly a lot of new) followers. But for others, this album may have well been entitled ‘Abandon Your Fans!’.

» fromautumntoashes.com