An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday
Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if Justin Timberlake, DJ Lethal and Emmure had a side project together? If so then Issues is your band. Issues is a Nu Metalcore band that incorporate an array of weird influences that include Pop, R&B, Rap, Metalcore, Djent and Nu Metal. While all of these genres should not, under any circumstances work together, they surprisingly do. Certain tracks go back and forth between heavier, harsh vocal driven bits and poppier sections while others have the boy band vocals and harsh vocals laid over top of a metal band with scratching and keyboard.
At the heart of the mixture of Pop and Metal are co-lead singers Tyler Carter and Michael Bohn. Issues is actually the third band that both Carter and Bohn have sang with, having previously worked as a duo in bands A Path Less Traveled and Woe, Is Me. Their chemistry shows throughout the album as they are able to make the transitions between and layering of Carter’s soft clean vocals and Bohn’s primal snarling work well.
Life Of A Nine is the track that features the band going through all of the genres they mix at a fairly rapid pace. The song starts off mid-breakdown then picks up tempo as Carter raps the pre chorus and then the chorus goes full pop, complete with shimmering synths around Carter’s clean vocals. One of the things I do have to give these guys is for all of the potential to be a novelty act they take their music seriously, having solid guitar work and generally well written lyrics. Even the bassist and drummer seem to hold their own for most of the album.
If Life Of A Nine has the most noticeable shifts of genre mid song then The Langdon House might be the most cohesive combination. This track does feel more like a standard Nu Metal track than anything else on the album, but it also mixes in the heavier Djent elements and pop vocals. This track also features some of the best rapping from Carter and even some harsh vocals towards the end of his verse. I give their drummer Josh Manuel a lot of credit here as he manages to pull off some fills in between the vocals on the softer sections without it sounding forced.
The rest of the album is much the same, seeing how many ways they can mix Rap, Metal and Pop over the course of the album. Late is more of a commercial Rock song throughout and the closing track Disappear features an acapella Gospel choir at the end, but other than that the rest is pretty similar. If you’re wondering where the idea of mixing Top 40 and Metal came from, apparently it was inspired by Nu Metal. Members of the band have said that they want to do with R&B and Top 40 what Nu Metal did with Rap music. So there you go, it’s Linkin Park’s fault again.
Overall this album is actually really good, there really isn’t a track on this album that I dislike. Despite the novelty of blending Pop and Metal this album is cohesive, certainly more cohesive than it has any right to be. A few of the transitions are jarring, such as Stingray Affliction’s bridge, but even those shifts don’t feel any more out of place than an ambient part of a Periphery song. I found myself enjoying this album way more than I ever thought I would and I’m curious to go listen to their second album Headspace now.
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