LAST CHANCE TO REASON

This gets squarely placed into the category of "so ugly" and "so out there" that a great many "progressive rock" fans are just not going to be game for it. As an appreciator of Mathcore, of this brand of hyper-aggressive Prog Metal (in a world post-DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN) and, more recently, a fan of the most necessary ugliness of the ugliest of Death Metal vocalists and other "growl artists" (see Chuck SCHULDINER of DEATH, also... lol), I'm personally so game for this.

I would say, most likely coming from a generally "post-hardcore" place, we are presented with a very tongue-in-cheek approach to vocals. Not to mention some absolutely ridiculous lyrics: "that lightbulb burned out when I left that b*tch for dead"; "your face is looking thin, maybe that's your HIV, but baby, you never looked so fresh to me"; "if apathy has never been so en vogue, then I am cocaine in 1986, and I'm the silicone in your fake t*ts"; and so on... To reiterate, the vocal delivery is also absurd at many times throughout. I think it's fun, but I'm sure for your average fan of, again to put it in quotes, "Progressive Rock", I'll assume it's more niche and more novelty than it is worthwhile. And thusly, to be as honest as possible, I wanted to make sure I was giving this particular album a proper rating, with the scope and focus of the site in mind.

The musicianship of the band is quite good and I really look forward to digging into more. If you are a fan of Technical Death Metal, the guitarwork alone should do it for you. If you can look past the obvious absurdities already mentioned above, and I'm sure if that descriptor of "fan" fits the bill for you, I would think it will.

Last Chance to Reason's second vocalist, Bob Delaney, was only in the band for about a year from what I can tell; enough time to record this album and tour for it and then get out of dodge. Before I had gotten into them, the thing that was the selling point was his replacement, Michael Lessard, most notably now known (also) as the current lead vocalist of modern Progressive Metal torchbearers THE CONTORTIONIST. And there are certainly some ethereal elements that I heard here that could be compared to those used by the latter. Worth checking out for fans of DILLINGER, BEHOLD... THE ARCTOPUS, early BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, and... others? I guess I'm not really so well versed with this side of Prog Metal.

True Rate: 2.75/5.00

— First review of this album —

I'm quite disappointed in this album after 'Last Chance To Reason's' mostly solid 'Level 2', which took the sound of bands like 'Between The Buried and Me' and then slightly simplified thing, adding more cleans and melodic hooks, overall making it more accessible while still being an interesting listen. For 'Level 3', I can basically describe it in exactly the same way, with the only added component being a darker sound in parts, with the cleans sometimes being quite muffled and distorted, which is quite interesting, but doesn't do much to separate itself from the previous album.

Despite what I've just said, I really love the first 2 tracks. 'Rebirth' is better than the majority of 'Level 2', with some incredible clean sections along with some decent riffs and a cool solo, overall opening the album excellently. 'Adrift I: A Vision Begins' is probably my favourite song here, because I do find it to be quite distinctive from the rest, with a vocal delivery that's very reminiscient of 'Deftones', which was a surprise on first listen, and consistently remains a great song, even once the initial novelty wears off. The next three tracks are all fairly standard, with some decent sections, but overall, nothing particularly amazing other than the chorus of 'A Glimpse of Omniscience', which is simply divine.

The issue with this album happens to lie in the tracks after 'Adrift II', which while decent, are nothing special, and end up making the album drag slightly despite the length only being 39 minutes. I do find this to be quite disappointing both considering how great the first few tracks were, and the potential this band clearly has, as I don't see anything to fault them on in terms of skill. This last portion of the album, up until the serviceable 'Transcendence', which brings back the compositional ability that the first few songs had, especially in terms of the great solo about halfway through, and it definitely ends the album on a high note.

Overall, this album is decent, but nothing spectacular, with some great songs, despite them sounding very similar to their previous album, but then having a string of songs that are dull. This makes the album flow poorly, and leaves the listener feeling bored by the end. That said, in terms of style, I enjoy the album quite a bit, and definitely haven't lost hope of ;Last Chance To Reason' releasing an incredible album, this just doesn't happen to be it.

Best Songs: Rebirth, Adrift I: A Vision Begins, Transcendence

Weakest Songs: The Dictator, The Artist

Verdict: I feel that if you liked 'Level 2', then you'll enjoy some of this, despite it being inferior in most ways. I'd definitely recommend you listen to this one after 'Level 2', as that is by far a better album and will likely leave a better impression about the band. Overall, while this isn't bad, it's nothing amazing either, and I don't consider this to be particularly essential at all.

It's utterly amazing just how different this album is to 'Last Chance To Reason's" debut. I originally expected some sort of evolution from the raw, unpolished sound of 'Lvl ', but this has such a different sound to it in basically every way, with more technical instrumentation with some aspects of djent, along with a style similar to BTBAM. The vocals no longer sound so poor and messy, with much greater focus on clean vocals, keeping the screams and growls, but simply using them far less frequently, and with far more power behind them. I also like the increased use of synth, as it gives the album a slightly closer feel to what I'm assuming what was intended, considering this band bases its ideas on video games, making the slight electronic aspect fit quite well. However, I find how similar this album can sound to BTBAM's 'Parallax' albums at points to sometimes get in the way of my enjoyment, as the style is incredibly similar, albeit less quirky here.

I definitely find that the songs on this album with the clean vocal hooks throughout to be the better ones on the album, as some of them sound incredible, particularly on 'Programmed For Battle', where the pace picks up wonderfully while the synths in the background make it sound like some epic space adventure. I also find that while some tracks early on don't really do much for me, the album improves exponentially once 'Programmed For Battle' starts, as the album becomes somewhat less generic, along with balancing between technicality and catchiness well. There are some more interesting ideas, along with a much grander sound that's backed up by some more interesting moments, such as the bass solo in 'Portal' or the various moments where some breakcore influence can be heard.

Overall, there aren't really any massive flaws in this album other than the set of three weaker tracks after 'Upload Complete' and a sound that's perhaps a bit too derivative in parts. Other than these, the album definitely ticks a lot of boxes, being really technically impressive while also being enjoyable to listen to. It's compositionally interesting, with the synths and clean vocals giving the listener some extremely memorable moments, along with being enjoyably fast paced. The vocals are also pretty great, as was expected considering Michael Lessard is also the current vocalist for 'The Contortionist'. There's definitely some room for growth and developing more of an identity, but even with what they have at the moment, it's clear that the band has a lot of potential and will likely go on to make some really great music.

Best Tracks: Programmed For Battle, Portal, The Prototype, Apotheosis

Weakest Tracks: Coded To Fail, Temp Files, Taking Control

Verdict: If you're into bands such as Between the Buried and Me and Cynic, then you'll likely enjoy this album quite a lot, as the heavy, sometimes chaotic nature of it will definitely appeal to such fans. I do also find this to be more accessible than such bands, mostly due to the more melodic approach combined with vastly shorter length of albums, making this possibly a decent starting point for people who want to get into such bands.

This band reminds me a lot of Between the Buried and Me in many ways, the big one with this being how similarly I feel about both bands' debuts. I find this to be extremely amateurish and extremely aggressive to the point where everything just ends up feeling somewhat like noise, but is also extremely all over the place with transitions, with even the length of the songs not taking away from how much some of these songs contain, even if most of it could easily be left out. There isn't too much variety between song, other than a few interludes that calm down for a bit. Despite a lot of this being pretty mediocre, there are some moments where there are some really groovy riffs, which definitely makes the overall listening experience somewhat better, along with a couple of decent solos, such as in 'Me and Tom Brokaw Are Like "This"'. I also find the raw nature of the album to be entertaining in its own right, with the cleaner vocal section in "She's My Bloody Pie' being a big example, not being particularly good, but still being fun. Unfortunately, other than isolated moments throughout the album, this never goes beyond listenable, never really being offensively bad, along with being quite short, but never really reaching any major heights, even in its best moments. For those who enjoyed BTBAM's first couple of albums, enjoy extremely fast paced, heavy music, or wanted to think of what 'Sikth' may have sounded if they decided to try going full metalcore (albeit with less compositional prowess), you'd probably get a kick out of this, but to me, there's definitely a lot of room for improvement, which fortunately was addressed on their future albums.

Best Songs: Those Were Real Witch Bones, Maddens for Noobz

Weakest Songs: Get Awesome, It's Professional When That Happens, Joe Dirt, She's My Bloody Pie

Verdict: A really messy album filled with similar flaws to BTBAM's debut, being sometimes unnecessarily heavy and fast, with the songs ending up blending together to some extent, leading to a fairly dull sounding album. It isn't terrible, but it isn't really very good either, and I'd only recommend this to someone into this kind of music, as I personally don't see how it could appeal to anyone else in a major way.

'Level 2' - Last Chance To Reason (8/10)

Disregarding the fact that it seems like every other melodic metal band with keyboards out there today is calling themselves 'progressive', the modern face of prog metal has been passed down to bands like Animals As Leaders, Periphery, and more recently, Last Chance To Reason. Here is a band that has only released their first major-label effort this year, and already shows plenty of promise for the years to come. Merging the sounds of a few progressive metal legends, Last Chance To Reason forms a sound that almost exclusively draws its influences from within the prog metal umbrella, and seeks to create something of an ultimate experience of the genre. As one might expect from this formula, there is little truly new that the band offers, but they do rather incredible things with what they have.

Seeing Last Chance To Reason live opening for Obscura demonstrated to me that this was a band who amazed on every front when it came to musical virtuosity. Apart from having one of the best mixed sounds I have ever heard in the live setting, each member brought something exciting and technical to the table. Last Chance To Reason's frontman Bob Delaney even proudly exclaims at the beginning of their set that they are 'progressive metal'. Sure enough, both the live performance and recording of this band tend to indicate that Delaney was making no understatement. It must be some feat in itself, but Last Chance To Reason manages to touch on virtually every cliche and convention of prog metal, save for a twenty minute epic. While I might be inclined to hate a band like this, the way in which the band executes it is far too well done for me to dismiss.

Musically, the primary influence I am hearing is Cynic, particularly their new, more song- based incarnation. The music is melodic, yet viciously technical, with time signatures being tossed around like pizza crust. The biggest similarity to Cynic are actually Bob Delaney's vocals, which are often clean and sound filtered through that Paul Masvidal vocorder thing that makes Cynic somewhat controversial among metal fans. The clean vocals work very well with the instrumentation; they bring melody to the table, but rarely get intense enough to distract. There are also growls here, but they don't work so well. Maybe the biggest conflict I have with the music of this band are their lyrics and concept. The body of the band's work revolves around video games, and apparently coincides with a larger project where this music is set to a video game. While it does not impede the technical proficiency of these players, the lyrics come off as cheesy and often reverting to technobabble, as opposed to poetic metaphors, and the sort of lyrics I most appreciate.

'Level 2' is a pretty amazing album in many regards, and while the band's influences are very clear even from the first listen, Last Chance To Reason's bombastic approach makes them recognizable and impressive. The drawbacks are few, but noticeable enough. All the same, I have no trouble believing that Last Chance To Reason's 'Level 3' (or whatever they will call their next album) will be a real hit, even moreso than this one. LC2R are a band to look out for.