I don�t think I need to introduce Atreyu. We already reviewed two Atreyu records before, did two interviews with the band and wrote several live reviews. As you may have noticed the review of The Curse got a 9 (out of 10) when the review of A Death-grip On Yesterday only got a 4,5. So lets see how Lead Sails Paper Anchor will do�.

 

I always had trouble defining Atreyu�s music and this record isn�t making it any easier. It has powerrock songs like �Doomsday�, while 'Lose It� is oldschool up-tempo metal and �Slow Burn� has even dance potential. Still, as also their bio is saying, this record exposes Atreyu�s love for �80s metal. And �80s metal rocks! Woohoow yeah!

 

So you do hear some metal and I suppose some �heavy� music, but still most of their songs have this mainstream character. Their last album A Death-grip On Yesterday wasn�t well received by Metalrage partly because of this. That record sounded way too slick. With Lead Sails Paper Anchor they�re again balancing on the edge. But still producing wise, I think it sounds okay. It sounds slick like Avenged Sevenfold does and I like their sound. Metal!

 

But I experience something new with Atreyu. It seems that their music consist of bits from different worlds. Bits from the pop mainstream world, bits from the rock world and bits from the �80s metal world. And normally it�s easy to hear which world is dominating. With Lead Sails Paper Anchor it isn�t. Overall, they play metal with a catchy pop sound. But I think it is mostly the vocals that make it so poppy. It sure aren�t the wicked metal guitar solos!

 

For me personally, they could have made it more metal and less poppy. This way they�re taking a huge risk of falling in between two worlds. And probably a lot of metalheads will dislike the band for this. But hell, you can�t please everyone and in the end you write the music because you like it yourself, right? As I may quote Saller (drums and vocals); �We did everything we wanted to accomplish on this album. This is us saying loud and clear that we can and will write and do whatever feels good to us.�

 

And last but not least, nice artwork! But it seems that they messed up the information that is on the disc compared with what�s on the booklet. When I put the record in my computer, it says that track 5 is �Lose It� and not track 6. And track 6 on the disc is named �Two Becomes One� when they probably mean �When Two Are One� (which is track 5 on the booklet). Pretty messy though.

 

So in the end Lead Sails Paper Anchor is a varied record. And yet not while all songs have that same Atreyu flavour. So far I can still dig Atreyu�s style on this record. But I just hope that they stick to the metal and that they won�t turn out like Good Charlotte or anything of that kind. Keep the power, keep the adrenaline, keep the metal!

 

Love Maurits