Album Review: The Amity Affliction - Misery

The Amity Affliction's previous album, This Could Be Heartbreak, was widely, and deservedly, criticised for rigidly adhering to the formula that the Aussie metalcore heavy-hitters had established a few LPs prior.

Such was the backlash regarding this career nadir that one scribe even declared to have reviewed the record without actually listening to it first - and scarily, was right on the money.

Not that such scathing critiques hampered them too much; said album topped the charts and they still sold plenty of tickets. But although they defended said LP, the band perhaps weren't so insular that they completely ignored the outside noise for this latest effort, Misery. It doesn't always gel, occasionally feels forced or derivative, and in places it's a vision not yet fully realised. However, aided by a lavish production, there's a clear effort made to not solely recycle past glories on their sixth album.

Often this entails adopting a more accessible tack, as the poppy electronic overtones of the singles strongly hinted at. But fear not, Misery is still readily identifiable as The Amity Affliction with cuts like Set Me Free recalling recent releases, and Joel Birch's raspy scream never straying too far as the counterpoint to Ahren Stringer's slick tones.

But there are arena-sized intentions here, Beltsville Blues, the oddly danceable Burn Alive and DIE all sounding like future crowd favourites. Conversely, even for a band that has always worn their emotions on their proverbial sleeves moody closer The Gifthorse is notable; a heartfelt tribute to late friend/musician Shane Collins.

Whether they felt compelled to make a shift by their own creative urges or to stem the tide of criticism, Misery may just afford The Amity Affliction a fresh start that seemed nigh on impossible a couple of years back.