Album Review: Legend - The Pale Horse

In an age where distinguishing mainstream metalcore bands is swift becoming a work of few satisfactions, Rise Records have slowly grown a strong roster of positive bands that all seem to want to prove themselves a little more than by simply applying the rules to their music. Emarosa has opened up the vocal department and bands such as Of Mice & Men and Memphis May Fire are both fighting for their distinguishable voice. Legend, on the other hand, are fairly new to the scene.

Their album ‘The Pale Horse’ is the epitome of a current metalcore scene effort, it checks all the required boxes from riff-riff-riff to the obligatory breakdown decorated by heavy as shit growls that often walk the line of unintelligibility. Yet for all its technical competence and overall adherence to the metalcore blood-lining, what the band lack is a voice of their own, something to set them apart from their many peers.

On a few occasions, Legend appear to show a little more variety in tracks such as ‘Shapeshifter’ where standard riffs sound fresher thanks to more groove-based musicianship. Unfortunately, the rest of their album is simply unsatisfying in its lack of originality, an characteristic that is only highlighted by the quality of the bands that share their label. The majority of the tracks are uninspired regurgitations of the same basic elements without the smallest consideration for anything more elevated than the bottom line.

Metalcore has become the voice for an enormous scene over the past few years, fresh with the promise of heavy music for everyone who cares to listen. But there must be a point where it is necessary not to simply play heavy for the sake of it. Legend are a bunch of decent musicians that simply apply the basics of metalcore. If credibility and recognition isn’t already beyond them, they need to start adding their own touch to the genre.

2/5

''The Pale Horse' by Legend is available now on Rise Records.

You can find Legend on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

James Berclaz-Lewis