Episode 6: Atreyu - 'Lead Sails Paper Anchor'

if anything Dan Jacobs has a cool lookin' guitar (via Alterna2 on flickr)

Sorry for yet another delay in this series. Between the holiday and helping cover Michigan's Final Four run at GBM Wolverine I've been a little busy. I'm excited to get back into this, though this week's probably gonna be a bit shorter. Next week should be a pretty big week for content, though. I've got some stuff I want to get started on Monday.

This week begins a two-week journey into the scene. In case you're not familiar with it, "scene" is essentially the subculture associated with Hot Topic, so a lot of more popular post-hardcore, pop punk, emo and metalcore bands tend to be lumped in with that subculture.

Scene kids have gotten a lot of crap over the years because they dress differently and a significant amount of them are teenage girls (people HATE things that teenage girls enjoy). I used to make fun of the Damn Weird Emo Kids, but then I became friends with a lot of people who could be described as (at least former) scene kids. I also discovered early in my high school years that I, too, liked pop punk and post-hardcore and emo music. So while my tastes in bands weren't often the ones that headlined Warped Tours and sold the most Hot Topic T-shirts, I discovered my tastes had a decent amount of overlap with the scene. I've gained a much greater appreciation for it as time has gone by (only when it comes to the fans and some of the music, of course. The more toxic aspects of the scene are an entirely different story).

So let's go back to the late 2000s scene with one of the most popular metalcore bands of the time, Atreyu.

Atreyu - Lead Sails Paper Anchor (Hollywood Records, 2007)

Genres: metalcore, post-hardcore

Producer(s): John Feldmann

RYM Rating: 2.36/5 (ranked 6/6 in band's catalog)

Sputnik Rating: 2.5/5 (ranked 6/6 in band's catalog)

Weeks at #1: One (Week of September 15, 2007)

Other Accomplishments: Certified Gold by RIAA, "Falling Down" and "Becoming the Bull" received significant airplay on rock radio.

Atreyu from my experience seems to be a "love it or hate it" band. I can kind of see why. On one hand, you have a very popular act in a scene where bands tend to build up almost cultish followings. On the other hand, you have a lot of people that hate everything involved with that scene and would naturally target the more popular bands as the objects of their scorn. People have very strong opinions on Atreyu, or at least they did in 2007.

I cannot imagine having particularly strong opinions about this band. Listening to their discography, I found myself thinking, "This is fine," and not much else. I think Dan Jacobs does some really nice work on guitar from time to time, and they've got some super catchy stuff. On the other hand, I kind of hate Alex Varkatzas' vocals (he mostly does the band's harsh vocals in the early works but does more clean vocals as time goes on; I don't particularly care for Brandon Saller's clean vocals either). 

As far as content goes, it's pretty standard scene metalcore stuff. Atreyu likes to combine the beautiful and the macabre. Their first album is called Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, and one of the singles from that album is "Lip Gloss and Black." That song ends with the words, "Live! Love! Burn! Die!" and that's a phrase that well-encompasses the themes of Atreyu.

When doing some research on the band, I came across this quote from PopMatters' Adrien Begrand on its Wikipedia page: "Atreyu is too goth to be emo, too metal to be punk, and too brazenly emotional to be metal." That's a quote from 2004, and makes the band out to be more unique and groundbreaking than I think they are, and disregards that there was already plenty of crossover between the worlds of goth and emo, punk and metal (and metal apparently can't be brazenly emotional?).

They're a metalcore band, and they sound like a metalcore band. They've got the darker lyrics, the mix of clean-and-harsh vocals, and the chugging riffs and breakdowns that play off the melodic aspects of the songs. It's fine, but Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, etc. were around helping the genre break out as well, and I think those bands sounded more distinct than Atreyu.

As the band and the genre built popularity (and started flirting with more mainstream attention with 2006's "Ex's and Oh's," they eventually signed a major deal with Disney-owned Hollywood Records. Lead Sails Paper Anchor is the band's first record under that label, and the more mainstream direction on such a commercial label is obvious.

Lead Sails could be seen as the band's "sell out" record, even though the band's already worked with mainstream producers and made plenty of music that appeals to teenage demographics. Just look at "Falling Down," perhaps the record's best known track. It's a pure pop rock song. There aren't any harsh vocals. The verses and especially the chorus are absolute earworms that haven't left my head since I first heard them in 2008, even if the melodies are delivered by an absolutely grating vocal performance. Earlier Atreyu had some mainstream appeal, but this version of Atreyu has radio airplay potential. Both "Falling Down" and "Becoming the Bull" would reach the top 5 of the mainstream rock charts.

The harsh vocals aren't completely eliminated. There are flourishes even on some of the poppier stuff throughout, and songs like "Doomsday" and "Can't Happen Here" still incorporate them heavily. Those are probably the two songs that stand out the most along with "Becoming the Bull."

The other songs see the band playing with their sound a little bit. "No One Cares" is the band's most teen-angsty song ever, and the lyrics wouldn't be out of place on a Simple Plan album. "Blow" is where the band goes for a more sleaze-rock sound, complete with a guest turn from Buckcherry's Josh Todd. It feels completely out of place, and is basically an excuse to get a bunch of swear words onto one song so the teenagers singing along can feel edgy. The album finishes with "Lead Sails (And a Paper Anchor)," which features the band going a bit... country? It's not as laughably bad as "No One Cares" and "Blow," but Atreyu's attempt at metalcore with a bit of twang didn't work.

I almost like the fact that the band's willing to add some variety as they turn more mainstream, even if it doesn't work. They could've easily just done 11 songs of "Falling Down"-like radio rock. It definitely makes the album feel more memorable than my experiences with their early stuff which I think gets a bit samey and generic. I respect experimentation, but I'd rather have bland than actively bad.

Atreyu released one more album during their initial run, 2009's Congregation of the Damned. They took a hiatus afterwards and came back recently in 2015 with Long Live. Those albums mark a return to the heavier sound of the earlier records, but they seem like pale imitations even to the original material that seems flat. The early stuff could get samey at times, but the newer material is completely forgettable. I think they perhaps overcorrected a bit too much after some of Lead Sails' debacles.

Final Rating: 4.5-5/10

Chris' Official Atreyu Rankings:
1. The Curse (2004)
2. A Death-Grip on Yesterday (2006)
3. Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses (2002)
4. Lead Sails Paper Anchor (2007)
5. Long Live (2015)
6. The Congregation of the Damned (2009)

Next Week: We visit the more post-hardcore side of the scene with Chiodos' Bone Palace Ballet