Album Reviews

Oh shit, Buddy is pissed! On the opening track of album number six, Senses Fail vocalist Buddy Nielsen and the rest of the guys in the band unleash their inner thrash-core demons. It’s a short two minute blast with growling vocals that will have no problems setting off some serious moshpit action. Off to a good start? I think so.

But then “Carry The Weight” kicks off with the kind of high-pitched emo singing that makes my skin crawl. This is set to a formulaic pop-punk tune before morphing into a slower, atmospheric part that does the song no favors whatsoever. And then we’re back to furious hardcore with “The Courage Of An Open Heart”. Wait… what? From there on, Senses Fail keep shifting gears in every other song, before attempting to combine both sounds in the title track.

Apparently the new album is broken up into four non sequential acts that are named after Buddhist concepts and teachings, I - Annica & Sacca (Impermanence & Truth, II - Tisarana (The Three Jewels), III - Maransati (Mindfulness of Death) and IV - The Brahmaviharas (The Heavenly Abodes), but I never would have known just listening to the album. As far as I’m concerned, “Pull The Thorns From Your Heart” is a slightly schizophrenic album where I like half of the songs, while getting completely turned off by the other half.