Review: Are Those Your Friends- Lambs Turn Into Lions (2011)

Band: Are Those Your Friends

Release: Lambs Turn Into Lions

Genre: Post-Hardcore

Label: Independently Released

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/arethoseyourfriends

Tracklist:

1. Unleash The Fury

2. Backstabber

3. Path Of Prosperity

4. Bloodbrothers

5. Fingerprints

6. The Inner Voice

7. Shoulder To Shoulder

8. Pictures Of You

9. Is That Being A Real Man?

10. Lambs Turn Into Lions

Review: 8.4/10

Are Those Your Friends have recently released their debut album Lambs Turn Into Lions and I wasn’t too sure of what to expect. I was thinking pop punk (since the name sounds like it) but this band is actually post-hardcore, with more of an emphasis on the hardcore side. These guys definitely know how to throw down, as evidenced on the song “Unleash The Fury.” Catchy guitar hooks, vocals that could skin cattle if it had knives, and drums that come to the guitar fight to back up everything.

“Backstabber” is a brutal track, with excellent stop-on-a-dime breakdowns thrown in bite sized chunks throughout the song. The singing vocals are a tad unclean, and I think that builds off the unclean screaming vocals, giving a one-two effect on the listener. The transition between the hardcore verses and the post-hardcore chorus is done very effectively.

To start off with a bang, “Fingerprints” has crashing cymbals, coupled with a trade off of the unclean and clean vocals during the verse and chorus to avoid a constant vocal structure, as a lot of post-hardcore bands do today. The guitars throw in a tiny bit of southern hardcore influence to give a little more depth into the song, more notable on the breakdown about 2:00 into the song.

Overall, this is a great album. It does set itself apart in many ways from other bands, but I feel that they can definitely use some work here. I would suggest throwing in a little bit of a hard rock influence into their music, in the sense of We Are The Ocean. I think that they can definitely play around with some different styles of music and mold it into their own so that they can really branch out and take the music world by the horns.