After Midnight Project – Let’s Build Something To Break

  

Artist: After Midnight Project
Album: Let’s Build Something To Break
Label: Universal Motown Records
Purchase: iTunes
Release Date: August 11th, 2009

Overall: 8
Music: 8
Lyrics: 8
Production: 8.5

It seems that lately the “scene” is littered with to many bands not caring about the message behind their music, it’s all about partying and dancing the night away. Most of the time this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it can give birth to some quality tunes, but every now and again music with “meaning” is important to listen to as well. This brings us to major label signees After Midnight Project and their latest release Let’s Build Something To Break.

From the beginning of the album it might be easy to write the band off as another 90’s revival band, with crunching guitars and rough vocal delivery. “Becoming” and the Linkin Park vibes of “Scream For You” exemplify this sound, which at first can be fun songs to listen to but lose their charm after multiple listens.

Although the first impression of this band might not be the greatest out of the box, the rest of the album really shows how impressions can change. The rest of the album is filled with surprises musically from a band that could have been stuck in a rut of a genre. Some songs rock harder then ever (“Come On Come On”), while others turn the speakers down and allow for a slow song to melt out (“Gone To Long’).

Let’s Build Something To Break is an album that keeps surprising the listener, where it may start off slow but it ends with a bang as there are twists and turns resulting in a concise yet genre-blending effort by the After Midnight Project. There are definately pop/mainstream chops being shown in songs like “More To Live For” and “Fighting My Way” (the latter being a strong power-ballad, hard to pull off). It’s obvious these guys are on the fast track to something big and this album will take them there.