Escape the Fate - Dyingis your Latest Fashion

Mon 30th Oct, 2006 in Music Reviews

Escape the Fate burst onto the scene early this year with their EP There’s No Sympathy for the Dead. They quickly built up a large cult following and just over four months after the EP came out, they released their debut full-length Dying is Your Latest Fashion.

The album kicks off with The Webs We Weave, a catchy number that is not as heavy as the music on the EP. However, it draws you in with hooky melodies, excellent guitar work and powerful singing throughout.

One of the defining features of Escape the Fate is singer Ronnie Radke’s vocals (that is why it was such a great shock to many fans when it was rumoured he’d left the band. He hasn’t.). His vocals are quite similar to those of Sonny Moore (From First to Last) with a large range, powerful high-notes and a passionate and strong sound. They are particularly outstanding in the slower and quite beautiful song, Cellar Door and also in Friends and Alibis and Not Good Enough for the Truth in Cliché. The latter is one of the strongest songs on the album not just because of the vocals but the driving guitars and strong melodies.

Another song that really stands out on the album is Situations. I laughed nearly the whole way through at the amusing, very sexually-charged yet tongue-in-cheek lyrics:

The guitars and vocals interchanging in the intro of this song sound awesome. The melody throughout is catchy and fun and all the instruments sound great.

Reverse This Curse is a fast-paced, fun song that will probably get stuck in your head with its super-catchy chorus.

The album finishes with the acoustic song The Day I Left the Womb. It’s a sad yet inspiring song in that the lyrics describe a dysfunctional family,

The only down side to this otherwise solid release is that two of the eleven songs are from the EP. Perhaps the result of a rushed record? The Guillotine and There’s No Sympathy for the Dead are both great songs but if you’ve heard the EP they’re nothing new and it’s a bit of a disappointment. The Guillotine features a great guitar solo and is one of the heaviest songs on the album, with deep, throaty vocals, so perhaps it was put in there to balance out this record’s more poppy tracks.

There are some outstanding songs on this record and the band members have obvious talent. And although it’s an impressive first album, if more time was spent on it, it may have been even better.