This Moment Star < Parallel

Ever since the advent of the album as more than a collection of singles in the early 1960's, rock acts have been attempting to weave recurring themes throughout a set of songs with varying degrees of success. This Moment's Star Parallel is another in a string of poorly conceived metalcore concept albums about love and death that suffers less for guitarist/lyricist Matt Lafferty's indulgence than it does for the time it apparently took away from writing quality songs. Star Parallel plays out more as a concept album about the last four years of melodramatic metalcore, minus the clean vocals and personality. If you've ever been listening to a Killswitch Engage record and wished that the memorable part of the song wouldn't have been there, This Moment will be your new favorite band. On a first listen, Star Parallel didn't seem all that bad. Quality production courtesy of Paul Miner (Atreyu, Terror) makes these songs seem a lot better than they are. The lack of whiny clean vocals was also an initial plus. Unfortunately, as the disc continues on, it becomes more and more evident that the whole record is just a series of verses in search of a chorus and jun-jun's in search of a weeeee. There's some moderately technical playing throughout the disc but the riffs all sound like they were found at a Ferret Music or (recent) Metal Blade garage sale. The vocals sound amateurish at best and lack any significant charisma. The disc's best actual composition is the out-of-place-yet-obligatory instrumental "Release of Hostage City." The song's basic guitar work and stirring violin playing immediately call to mind the score of the brilliant sci-fi western series Firefly. Bottom Line: While a poorly constructed concept album is most often sunk by the weight of its own absurdity, This Moment's Star Parallel isn't even memorable enough to earn that distinction. Instead of aiming for greatness and failing miserably, This Moment has simply dressed up their mediocrity in great production and a miserable concept. If you love predictable metalcore riffs and hate the occasionally catchy portions that even the most marginally talented bands can put between them, buy this record.