Iwrestledabearonce - Hail Mary

Woman Fronted IWABO Release Their Fourth Earsore

Iwrestledabearonce are a Louisiana based experimental metalcore band who've been around since 2007, their early music under former vocalist Krysta Cameron was very diverse in genres, ranging from grindcore to jazz to synthpop, their songs could be simply identified by their constant, almost tedious changes of tempo, the boring and unvaried blast beats, and of course Cameron's uninspired, flat death growls. IWABO's songs almost always feature the more mellowed out, melodic interludes within their songs, often containing clean vocals. Iwresteledabearonce 2007-2011 was the same mindless one trick pony until the end which offered nothing but the same mediocre, almost laughable sound.

In 2012 Cameron was replaced by Courtney LaPlante, and by 2013 they had released their third album 'Late For Nothing'. This album showed off a more streamlined sound, the push and pull changes between heavy and melodic were less clunky, overall this record was actually pretty decent, it stuck to more core metal genres for inspiration such as heavy metal and hard rock, the rate of blast beats was toned down to the point where you weren't sick of listening after 2 tracks, and most importantly LaPlante's vocals were on another level compared to Cameron, her cleans especially were well polished and her gutturals were crushing.

So when they announced their fourth album 'Hail Mary' I was feeling optimistic, I thought that IWABO would carry on down the more melodic experimental path that 'Late For Nothing' offered and maybe the 2013 release may see the album keep the instrumental quality and not the wannabe brutal sound the early material was full of. I couldn't have been more wrong. 

The album opens up with 'Gift Of Death' and the first thing I was greeted with was everything that made me hate Iwresteledabearonce; predictable blast beats, horrific and forgettable lyrics and changes in tempo that made me feel uncomfortable from start to end. This album features guitar quality you'd expect from a band who record in their garage, the constant stock tones mixed with the unnecessary electronic noises that are as good as forcefully crammed into your ear right from the get go never leave, they're always around each track which makes the whole album so painful to listen to. The vocals are honestly laughable, there are some really horrific moments on this record, the very creatively titled 'Killed To Death' features lows that sound like the Cookie Monster might have made a cameo and 'Carbon Copy' sounds like they dragged a freaking dog into the studio and let it go ruddy mental, the song 'Doomed To Fail - pt2' sounds like it was taken straight out of an Evanescence B-side, it's awfully repetitive and soul-crushingly boring and Courtney totally fails to live up to the vocal heights she hit in 'Late For Nothing'. 

The whole album is nothing more than utterly forgettable, one minute they're trying too hard to be a breakdown heavy 'br00tal' almost deathcore-like band and the next their trying make hard hitting melodic metalcore. 'Hail Mary' is downright awful to put it simply.

1/10

/ EXPERIMENTAL METAL / MATHCORE / DEATHCORE /

FAV TRACKS: 

LEAST FAV TRACKS: Gift of Death - Killed To Death - Carbon Copy -