Parkway Drive
Killing With A Smile
8.3
So far, 2006 has been a pretty good year for metalcore despite the metal masses' general disdain for the genre; The Acacia Strain, Maroon, Bloodshoteye, Ligeia, Shallow Water Grave, The Hope of Change, Serapis, On Paths of Torment, Dead to Fall - all delivering solid if unoriginal attempts at death metal tinged metalcore, and now comes Australia’s Parkway Drive with their debut effort and it compares favorably to The Hope Of Change’s Hourglass, which means it does everything right, and is certainly more enjoyable than label and country mates Ikilledthepromqueen.
As with Hourglass, what makes Killing With a Smile standout is the songwriting. Though filled with Killswitch Engage like vocal duality and European harmonies, breakdowns, token death growls and lyrical cliches, Parkway Drive just write good instances of all the aforementioned attributes. Starting with the galloping, noodling “Gimme a D”, through tracks like standout “Pandora” (the guitar work at 1:18 and subsequent melodic breakdown is one of the better metalcore moments of the year along with Ligeia’s “The Blackout”), the lumbering "Romance is Dead”, the blistering "Picture Perfect Pathetic”, and the sumptuous “A Cold Day in Hell”.
There’s a few cookie cutter moments of well done ‘blah’ (acoustics of “It's Hard to Speak Without a Tongue”, the predictable structures of “Anasasis (Xenophantis” and “Mutiny”), but given the mediocrity of a lot of metalcore are still acceptable.
Topped of by an expected clean polished production, Killing With a Smile is most certainly recommended for those of you that still see metalcore as a viable genre or marketing ploy. Either way this is a pretty solid record that shows the Aussies can spin kick with the best of ‘em.
