Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 02/12/2008
Five years on from 2003's
Burn Your Scripts Boys, one-man-band
Nathan Burke has left his day job with the
post-hardcore act
Frodus and moved cross-country from Washington D.C. to Seattle. As one might expect from all those changes,
Pierce the Empire with a Sound is a rather sweeping change of direction from
Burke's debut as the
Out Circuit. Where that album had been a fairly standard issue
emo release tempered by a certain level of
Radiohead-like sonic experimentation,
Pierce the Empire with a Sound is a dark, chilly
electronic album filled with low-key, moody
pop songs that occasionally get interrupted by bits of shouty
post-hardcore angst. The opening
"Come out Shooting" features the best balance of the two sides of the
Out Circuit, putting a hoarse
screamo vocal against a fluid, bass-driven
electronic dance track. Tunes like the lyrical
indie electronica of
"Across the Light" and
"Scarlet," as well as the almost
Pink Floyd-like blissout
"The Hexagon" are more typical, although the generally mellow and spacy sound is interrupted twice towards the album's center, with
"The Contender" and
"The Fall of Las Vegas," by-the-book pieces of
post-hardcore angst with guest lead vocal appearances by
Dustin Kensrue of
Thrice and
Sean Ingram of
Coalesce, respectively. The fact that
Burke barely even tries to combine the two sides of the
Out Circuit's musical personality after the opening track perhaps suggests that he's less committed to the
post-hardcore side of his music than he might be; assuming that five years don't pass before the next album, it seems likely that the dark but appealing electronics will predominate even further.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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