Album Review: Killswitch Engage – Atonement

A likeable bunch of metalcore Mass-holes, Killswitch Engage's success has been easy to cheerlead for. Vocalist Jesse Leach returning for 2013 effort Disarm The Descent's stirring combination of energy, melody and power only reinforced this sentiment.

Follow-up Incarnate didn't quite hit the mark, though, at times uninspired and afflicted with filler. And this LP's single Unleashed likely didn't help its cause – a serviceable enough song containing the trademark touches (chugging passages, melodic leads, bipolar vocal approach), it nonetheless felt flat and interchangeable with past releases. Elsewhere though, while hardly reinventing themselves, the group goes some way to redressing the balance with Atonement.

The record isn't found wanting in the catchy as flypaper hooks department, but also refreshingly contains some of their most aggressive fare in eons, and emanates a darker tone in spots. Having experienced depression, divorce and health issues, Leach's impassioned performance elevates proceedings. When he reveals that he'd “reopen my wounds for you” on I Am Broken Too, it comes, as therapists like to say, from a very real place. Meanwhile, his scathing tack on Bite The Hand That Feeds resonates.

There are other highlights to be found in the collaborations. Testament's Chuck Billy channels that band's bruising mid to late '90s period with his grunts on The Crownless King. And there's former KSE vocalist Howard Jones guesting on The Signal Fire. The track boasts an earworm of a chorus that ought to satisfy those salivating over the prospect of this union of past and present singers.

Atonement hits the bullet points fans will demand, but also reaffirms Killswitch Engage's importance in the modern metal canon.