Dear Lord, someone please wake me when the coma passes. What has it been now, ten years since the Metalcore revolution (revulsion)? The genre is quickly becoming a parody of itself. I am bored to tears and contemplating going to church to pray for my own salvation from this trite and conceited garbage being passed off as bona-fide art within the arena of Hot Topic marketing campaigns. Hair cuts and white belts are certainly not the reasons why I continue to support the cause of Heavy Metal. Christian Metal, so far as it goes, is absolutely unacceptable. Now, this is not to say that I doubt the sincerity or conviction of bands like A LOVE ENDS SUICIDE; it isn't even that I find objection to the message, since Christian Metal is just the opposite of a shtick mined by DEICIDE et al, and they sell it like pancakes and sausage at a fat farm, so why can't the good guys?

The fact is, I remember BELIEVER, ONE BAD PIG, MORTIFICATION, and BETRAYAL. These bands had valid MUSICAL things to say. They were not carbon copies of one another and in spite of their agendas, they were above all exciting to listen to. A LOVE ENDS SUICIDE, while sure to incite the (m)asses, just leaves the listener cold. You've heard this before, it's all over MTV, and the kids are chowing down on it like candy meth and Cocaine cola (yes, that really is a brand name). I just don't know how many more beat downs and breakdowns I personally, or the overall genre of Metal, can further endure before we all admit that AVRIL LAVIGNE is pretty damn cool.

The above is not meant to say that A LOVE ENDS SUICIDE is not without a few tricks up their collective sleeve. The music itself is solid above all else and lends itself to beating those pesky invisible ninjas within an inch of their lives. But therein lies the issue: The whole thing is wrapped up in a cliché of what constitutes heavy. The haircuts are perfect, the pitch is defect free, A440 has never sounded so spot-on. The most despicable shout out occurs early on, with the lyric "let's move this floor side to side." Hold your beer, hold your breath, don't talk about anything not on the edge, 'cos oh man the Borgcore masses (they are, like, SO unique and nobody understands the family, man. Lemme punch you in the head) will stop that right here and now. Maybe I'm too old, but none of this makes sense. No matter how solid it is, and "In This Disaster" is definitely worthy of thorough head banging, the end result is like Chinese food. You're initially filled up, but half an hour later you want more EXTOL with a side of AS I LAY DYING.