Nov. 16th 2010, the release date of What Separates Me From You was, unfortunately, not a day to remember. Overall, A Day to Remember is a solid band incorporating the best of both heavy and pop music however, it gets to a point where deciding which direction to go and not attempting too much at both genre would be a better decision for the band’s career.
That being said, What Separates Me from You was a bitter sweet experience for me. Since Homesick was largely produced on the road, it provided an underlying sadness and anxiety to return home, hence the title Homesick. Perhaps the issue with What Separates Me From You was that the band had too much time in the studio to write and produce.
In a nutshell, the guitar and bass work on the album is solid and well composed, drums are good, screaming vocals are excellent, and the overall production was decent.
The first track on the album, “Sticks and Bricks”, starts off with an in your face, brutal sound that paves its way into an impressive chorus. The lyrics are well written and the overall song composition is excellent, but one thing producer Chad Gilbert could have done better was structuring the dynamics of the breakdowns throughout, not only this song, but the entire album as well. For example, had Gilbert accented certain guitar riffs that pound at your ear drums and really separated riff from breakdown which would have been icing on the cake.
“Sticks and Bricks” leads into a track previewed about a month before the actual release entitled “All I Want”. Now this is what one would expect from an A Day to Remember record. This style of song is a mixture of sounds that could have been found on For Those Who Have Heart and Homesick. “All I Want” is by far one of the better songs on the album because it incorporates flawlessly what the A Day to Remember sound is all about.
The next song on the record, “It’s Complicated,” brings out the typical pop. The verse is okay, but the chorus reminds me too much of another one of those bands; one of those bands that are all about finding themselves and trying to figure out the world. This is a song that should have been left off of the album.
“This House that Doubt Built” follows “It’s Complicated” and was actually a rather impressive song. If you liked the old A Day to Remember For Those Who Have Heart days, then this song is what I would recommend. This song represented the mixture of …And Their Name Was Treason and the re-release of For Those Who Have Heart sound. It reminded me of the famous tracks off of both albums “You Should Have Killed Me When You had the Chance” and “Your Way with Words is Through Silence.”
Next we get to “2nd Sucks”; probably the meanest and meatiest A Day to Remember song ever. Seriously, one of the best songs I have ever heard from this artist just because I prefer the hardcore rooted songs like “Heartless” off of For Those Who Have Heart or You Already Know What You Are off of Homesick. Jeremy McKinnon’s screams went from good to great on this record. “Better Off This Way” and “All Signs Point to Lauderdale” represent what type of sound A Day to Remember should avoid. They definitely portray some outstanding verses but, again, the chorus sections in almost every song on the album are mediocre ones.
One thing that kind of hit me in the face unexpectedly was the ending of “Better Off This Way”. There was some sort of synth-piano melody nonsense that just didn’t fit in with the A Day to Remember style. This was frustrating because everyone uses synth leads and melodies that sound the same. Stupid lyrics in the chorus, good guitar parts, stupid lyrics, drums are mediocre, stupid lyrics. I’m really getting sick of hearing the same thing about friends, towns, weekends, and stuff like that.
What Separates Me From You transitions from a pop sound again to heavier “You Be Tails. I’ll Be Sonic.” This along with “Out of Time” had probably the worst two intros ever written. This goes against what has been said as far as the good verse, bad chorus deal. These two songs had the best and worst of the album, with decent guitar work, typical Alex Shelnutt drumming, and a good chorus yet terrible verse.
Both songs seem like McKinnon’s vocals were overproduced, because the beginning screams of “You Be Tails. I’ll Be Sonic.” made me laugh out loud; they were just embarrassing. The final tracks on the album “Out of Time” and “If I Leave” should have their names changed to “Thank God I’m Out of Time Listening to this Album” and “When I Leave I’ll Listen to Homesick”. The last two songs made me glad the album was almost finished because it was a mediocre record from an exceptional band.
Overall, What Separates Me From You would have been better off released between the releases of For Those Who Have Heart and Homesick, because there is no way A Day to Remember could have topped either. This is an album that will take some time getting used to but I stick to my guns when I say they could have done better.
