The hype-mills have been working overtime recently as Rise Records’s newest golden boys, The Color Morale, have released their latest record, My Devil In Your Eyes. Typically, an astute student of the Scene will pigeonhole a Rise band as disposable, metalcore fare— an ignorant action considering recent Rise signees Man Overboard and Transit. Alas, the good news is that The Color Morale are not disposable. The bad news, however, is that they are typical metalcore fare. Contrary to the hype-mills, The Color Morale’s sophomore record is littered with unimaginative breakdowns, good-but-not-great vocals and musicianship, and is a downright conservative attempt at moving the genre forward.
 
Breakdowns have become as common in today’s alternative music scene as flannels were to grunge bands in the 1990’s. This writer will not hate on breakdowns, electing rather to relish a well placed, passionate drop in any hardcore song. Alas, when used too frequently, breakdowns can become overly-redundant, irrelevant to the overall message the band is trying to portray with the song, and at worst, an unwarranted distraction. Unfortunately, My Devil In Your Eyes suffers from breakdown overload. Songs such as “The Dying Hymn” and “Demon Teeth” are lost, despite their well-intentions, due to misplaced and unimaginative breakdowns.
 
Vocalist Garret Rapp deserves credit for his ability to switch from brutal growls to smooth clean vocals with ease; the latter is a great improvement over his previous effort on We All Have Demons. Alas, just because he does both hard and soft vocals— a rarity in today’s hardcore and post hardcore scenes— does not mean that he does either exceptionally well. Where his screams are by far superior to his clean vocals, neither blow the listener out of the water. Nevertheless, Rapp shines on tracks such as “Nerve Ending” and “Quote On Quote.” Rapp’s best vocal display is on “Walkers,” which also happens to be the stand-out track of the record. Meanwhile, musicianship is neither horrible nor spectacular. Drummer Steve Carey absolutely kills it on “Quote On Quote”; guitarists Ramon Mendoza and John Bross excel on “This Song Is Yours”— the duo riff through three and a half minutes of in-your-face aggression.
 
In a genre so cluttered, as metalcore is, it is hard to stand apart from the rest of the bands. Bands like Norma Jean and The Devil Wears Prada have perfected the formula to not only surviving in the genre but also thriving in it. Their secret? Pushing the boundaries of acceptability. In recent years, The Color Morale can look no further then labelmates and up-and-coming group, Woe, Is Me, for an exemplar envelope-pushing band. Alas, it seems The Color Morale are just surviving in the genre. They take no risks with My Devil In Your Eyes. That is not to say that the record is bad— quite the contrary. Yet to insinuate, as many reviews of this album have, that the status-quo improved by a bit is worthy of outright praise seems implausible to anyone whose auditory pallet is developed enough to recognize good music. It is not enough to just be “another Rise band.” The Color Morale need to take more risks; they need to push the metalcore conversation forward. My Devil In Your Eyes simply does not accomplish this feat.

**.5/*****

*This review was composed by Mike Meeze