The Price of Existence

With age, wine gets better. If that is the truth, then deathcore is the antonym to wine. What I’m about to describe to you is CLASSIC deathcore. It was catchy, it was raw, it was HEAVY. This is “The Price of Existence”.

“The Price of Existence” is a wild album. We have highly technical music in one corner and just having fun with it in the next. A ton of blast beats and interesting guitar parts with those thrash-style gang vocals. That’s the secret here, the perfect blend of death metal and hardcore. “Eradication”, the opening track tells you what this album is going to be like from the get-go. Breakdowns are everywhere to be found. It is deathcore, after all. And, instead of having them randomly placed at the middle or at the end of a song, they are carefully placed in an area of the song where it meshes together with the rest of it all.

They take a lot of influence from technical death metal bands like Suffocation and Cryptopsy, surprisingly. The drumming here is exceptionally done and sounds super tight. Sometimes there’s some jazz-like drumming like in the beginning of “Better Living Through Catastrophe”. The solos on the album are amazing! Chris Storey is a great guitarist and should be recognized more. There’s a truckload of sweep picking and a lot of crucial guitar parts that are executed perfectly. The vocals are absolutely amazing. An amazing death metal voice can be found in Eddie Hermida. The highs are hit with perfection and lows are guttural and grotesque. The production quality is great. Not over-processed like metal music today. Sounds raw, but not too much. You can hear all of the instrumentation to its fullest as well. The lyrics are great as well. They make sense while being a bit poetic.

However, the album starts to feel a bit boring and starts lose its listeners attention that it had in the beginning. Like with “Wage Slaves”. As soon as I heard that cowbell, I knew this was going to be good. But the beginning of the song “Promises” doesn’t do the same. Track eight through ten has got this problem. The songs sort of crash into one another and you can’t really tell which is which at that point. The last song, “The Last Relapse” is great though. It starts off with some piano, and then has some clean vocals. Which, this time, is fine. It seems like the cleanliness fits the mood of the song. It is the grandiose to end such a spectacular album.

Other than that, everything smooths together perfectly. This album has a unique sound that hasn’t really been copied perfectly by anybody else out there. A major part of this are the completely unconventional song structures that have many different parts to make up a verse. These are the pioneers of deathcore at work! This album is clearly one of the 2000’s greatest metal albums and should get more attention. This is a highly recommended listen for death metal fans trying to get into deathcore.

Highlights: Eradication, Wage Slaves, The Last Relapse

Well, this seems to be an album that people either love or loathe, so I thought I’d throw in my opinion. I found this band through a friend who recommended them to me when they found out I like Job For A Cowboy. I had a listen on their website and I was suitably impressed. The song “There’s No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet” really caught me, so I picked up a copy of the album. After my first listen, I was impressed, but it was a throw away sort of thing, nothing to grab me. Then I played it again, and payed attention.

The difference hit me. Starting with Eradication, the album just slams you in the face and doesn’t let up. The fact is, whether people like it or not, these guys can fucking play. I mean that, they can really fucking play. Matt Kuykendall is easily one of the most inventive drummers I’ve ever heard, and I’m a technical death metal fan. He always seems to know when a beat is getting boring, and when it needs a fill or a run. His use of gravity blasts in “There’s No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet” is immensely effective despite the idea of a gravity blast being a common thing in the more “chaotic” styles of death metal (Eg: Nile, Cryptopsy, etc). The great thing I found on this album about Matt, was that even during breakdowns, he knew when it need some diversity, so consequently, when most bands would just have the double kicks follow the guitar’s standard chug-chug, he throws in random fills and kicks to make them stand out a bit more. He is truly an underrated drummer.

The guitar work on this album is catchy, to the point, riffage. There’s a few solo’s that show off their insane ability, but most of the riffs do that anyway (see “Eradication”). It shows how much a band can improve with a new guitarist, when they went from “slam you into the wall” deathcore, to this refined, almost technical death metal sound in one album. The bass is pretty straight forward, but does get a few show off points (see “There’s No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet”) just to prove he’s still there.

The vocals on this album are the true highlight. Eddie Hermida has one of the most intense vocal ranges I’ve ever heard in metal, right up there with Matthew Chalk of Psycroptic and Devin Townsend of SYL fame. He switches from immensely low gutturals to ear-shattering screams in a split second and even throws in a few pig squeals for good measure. For a true example, listen to “Wage Slaves”, where Eddie climbs his entire range for the first breakdown.

The production is damn near perfect, with everything clear and defined, while the guitar tone is perfect. The drum tone is extremely triggered, but not in a bad way, as it adds to the sound. All Shall Perish's music is not performed by just anyone, it's a breed of material successfully perpetrated by a select few bands, within the select group of mentally ill ones. The circle of bands that really manages to reach such a triumph is even smaller.

There are a few bad points to this album just to be fair. Some of the riffs do tend to blur together. It’s a bit short at only 30 minutes or so. And the breakdowns do get a bit repetitive. All in all however, this album is a shining beacon of deathcore. I'll be sincere, deathcore is a very repetitive genre where almost all bands sound the same, but I really come to talk that there are still bands that known how to evolve from that primitive deathcore towards something more complex and varied in all colors. This evolution mostly turns into a twist as they go to technical or progressive musicianship. Even though if they haven't released new material for a long time, I hope the specialized American bands will find a new way to gift powerhouse discs with the geniusness I've described on this one.

It's a fact that, when it comes to genres such as deathcore, a lot of people immediately turn up their noses, and at times this attitude is justified by the amount of garbage bands claiming to belong to this genre that plague the modern extreme metal scene. Nonetheless, even fierce detractors of this crossover branch of music cannot help but praise what is probably the best output coming from this background, that is, "The Price Of Existence" by All Shall Perish.

In a year which saw an outburst of copycat bands, following the release of Job For A Cowboy's "Doom" EP and the trend of myspace deathcore scene kids rising, All Shall Perish were able to release an album that literally destroyed the competition, and still to this day, despite the great amount of excellent releases and the maturation within a certain branch of the deathcore scene, stands as the genre's magnum opus and best reference model, thanks to its originality and utter quality.

The secret to the success of "The Price Of Existence" resides in the perfectly balanced mix of hardcore and death metal elements, and in the inclusion of melodic elements directly taken from Gothenburg's melodeath current, plus some minor influences from subgenres such as technical death metal and grindcore. The music contained in "The Price Of Existence" is complex, technical, violent, making up for a relentless aggression, but at the same time it's varied, entertaining, studied and memorable, resulting brutal but without sacrificing emotion even in the slightest.

A perfect example of what I stated above is probably represented by the album's opening track, "Eradication": the song starts with a brief melodic section, backed by some drum fills, to explode in a couple of extremely fast sweeps, followed by the acrobatic main guitar riff and by a devastating blast beat session, followed by a breakdown perfectly integrated with the music that beautifully and suddenly slows the pace. Yes, a great amount of breakdowns is obviously present, but what makes them so pleasant to listen and what distinguishes this album from the rest of the competition is the fact that they feel like a natural progression of the songs.

They're not placed as to sound annoying or just to hit you in the face, often breaking the song's structure like a lot of other equivalent acts do: they are harmoniously included in the mix, adding variety to the tracks and perfectly matching the band's style, that carefully avoids resorting to traditional song structures. The aforementioned song "Eradication" offers a perfect explanation of what I'm writing, as the breakdown is followed by a slower, groovy section, to proceed to the solo part, where the lead axe is playing intricate sweep patterns, while the rhytm guitar is busy performing another breakdown in the while. Then, the main riff and the stanza reprises and the song ends.

The description I gave above is just an example committed to illustrate what I mean with "non-traditional song structures"; plus it allows me to explain the style of guitar playing this album stands out for. For almost half of the duration of the album, the guitars play patterns that are completely different, but at the same time are capable of perfectly complementing each other, both retaining the technical aspect of the composition and resulting in pure eargasm. Especially during the breakdowns, we often have situations while one guitar is chugging, while the other is performing a tapping session ("Eradication"), or a dissonant chord pattern ("The True Beast"), making you wonder how talented a musician has to be to conceive something so well-orchestrated and memorable at the same time.

The solos, when present, are fantastic and extremely difficult to perform, and the fact that they're displayed only in certain songs of the platter valorizes them. Well, we've talked about the guitars, but what about the rest of the band? Drummer Matt Kuykendall ends up making the absolute best studio performance of his life, resulting absolutely ferocious behind the kit, spacing from frequents displays of bomb blast bravado, to insanely fast gravity blasts (as seen in "There Is No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet"), not to mention his funambulatory fills and the inhuman precision with the double bass.

Talking about singer Eddie Hermida makes me shed a little tear, thinking to what a moron he's become now, and how he's almost abandoned this project to join a band that was already balancing on the edge of mediocrity, just to make it turn to complete crap. However, on this CD he perfectly demonstrates why he's considered one of the best vocalists in the extreme music scenario, possessing an inhuman range, spacing from the lowest growls to the highest shrieks, being a master of techniques such as the fry scream and the pig squeal, perfectly capable of combining them in a way that's possibly the most expressive and emotional style I've ever heard in any extreme metal band.

The bass goes on unnoticed for great part of the CD, but it has its time to shine with some exceptional leads here and there, for example in "There Is No Business...". The production is just perfect, crunchy, modern, distorted, balanced, enhancing the music at its maximum potential; the lyrics are studied and well-written, dealing with themes of cynicism, social/life struggles, betrayal, pain, loss, but at the same time rebellion and revenge.

An in-depth analysis of the songs would require simply too much time, resulting tedious and ultimately difficult due to the extremely complex nature of the platter. Each track represents an highlight in its own right, save maybe the brief instrumental which has the role to allow the listener to catch a breath around half of the record. I'll just say that, although following the same general style, the songs are extremely varied, some resorting, among the rest, to a certain amount of hooks and catchiness ("Eradication", fan favourite "Wage Slaves", etc.), other enhancing the melancholic side of the composition ("Better Living Through a Catastrophe", "Prisoner of War", "The Last Relapse"), often thanks to brief inclusions of narrated parts or of instruments such as the strings, some other being just rough, in-your face and brutal ("The True Beast"). Melody is a constant throughout all the album, making up for a fantastic contrast with the brutality of the compositions, although some songs enhance this aspect, sounding almost melodeathish ("The Day Of Justice" and "There Is No Business" come to my mind in these terms).

What else should I say? This is literally one of the absolutely best extreme metal records I've ever listened to, one that may as well make detractors of deathcore think again about the legitimacy and the quality of this branch when pulled off the right way. Give it a spin in full, if you haven't already, I assure you're in for a thrill!

Deathcore isn't a genre I am particularly fond of. I find the majority of it bland and repetitive. However, there are exceptions; and All Shall Perish is one of them. This album is a good example why.

The Price of Existence starts off with Eradication, and it is easy to tell why this album is stellar right from the get-go! It is technical, melodic, and most importantly metal. The album is full of At the Gates inspired riffs with some shredding to top it off. The solo work from Chris Storey is phenomenal on this album and flows perfectly with each song he solos on. The drumming on this album is also worth noting. Matt Kuykendall's drum performance on this album is fantastic!

Another member who deserves praise on this album is Eddie Hermida. Eddie's vocals have a very wide range, while remaining intelligible compared to other vocalists in the genre. He even incorporates some clean singing on the final track on this album "The Last Relapse" and they are very will done! The lyrics on this album are also high above their deathcore counterparts. The production on this album is perfect. It's not black metal raw, nor is it compressed to death. It's clean, but not too clean.

A staple of deathcore are breakdowns. While normally I have a problem with them, they flow really well with the rest of the songs here which I do not have a problem with. And they aren't so in your face about them either.

In conclusion, The Price of Existence is a great album which I encourage every metalhead to at least check out. It's heavy, fast, melodic, and technical!

Deathcore has typically been a very maligned genre in metal due to the fact that certain tropes appear within it. Songwriting is often amateurish and chug happy with few complex riffs or rhythms with an excess of breakdowns that either happen too often, take too long, or just sound too simple to be engaging. Often sophomoric lyrics with excessive profanity and boasting spat forth by vocalists who usually sound the same doing either pained death growls or abundant ridiculous pig squeals plague the genre, yet also define it and thus gives many people the impression that nothing can be done right with it.

All Shall Perish and their second release, The Price of Existence seem to be trying to refine many of the features of the deathcore genre by pruning some of the excesses typical of generic deathcore and adding to places where things are too simple. They seem to be out to create a more balanced and pure-vein death metal influenced "-core" record. They succeed at making inroads towards an original, rage-filled, palatable, and overall smashing deathcore album. Brutality and melody are mixed to a near perfect balance on this record with original riffs, a smarter handling of breakdowns and pig squeals in a way that they become more of an asset to the album as opposed to a hindrance. Smarter songwriting also gives The Price of Existence more memorability and ferocity in the way that they don't sound like a banal deathcore act, a dime-a-dozen melodeath band, or an irritatingly generic brutal death metal band. All Shall Perish sounds original, they do their own thing and do it well, and that is one of the reasons this record sticks so well. With all these more original and balanced ideas, alongside avoidance and refinement of certain genre cliches, All Shall Perish have arguably created the first classic deathcore album.

The Price of Existence starts off on a rather brutal note with Eradication launching into a flurry of blast beats and brutal-meets-melodic death metal riffs that shred and pummel until the first shouts are heard, a loud "I DETEST THIS LIFE!" is belted forward, the song slows down and over the course of it, gradually speeds up to the solo which is performed with technical and emotive expertise to finally cap off the song shortly before it ends. This is the kind of songwriting that is prevalent throughout this release, intricate, meticulous, and free flowing, plus a bit of catchiness. That's the kind of writing that makes for memorable songs, and memorable albums for that matter, when done with enough variety. That variety is also present in spades on this release as fan favorite song, Wage Slaves, throws in plenty of mosh-happy groove metal into the mix with riffs that wouldn't sound out of place on an album by fellow Oakland natives Machine Head. Add some death metal sensibilities to that, and you get easily one of the most aggressive songs out there, which batters its listeners with stomping rhythms and sledgehammer melodies sure to please anyone itching to mosh.

Many of the songs on The Price of Existence will evoke an apocalyptic or destructive atmosphere of explosions and gunfire with rapid-fire semi-melodic guitar play and chugging bass lines to keep the atmosphere of crushing destruction going. Songs like Prisoner of War, We Hold These Truths..., and Promises are exemplars of this sound. Wild tornadoes of tremolo picking and rapidly running up and down the fretboard on songs like There is No Business to be Done on a Dead Planet, and The True Beast show of their chops for more of a brutal death metal sound by relentlessly assaulting the listener with this rhythmic storm. Atmosphere and melody are also played with for the sake of variety, emotion, and catch whether it be the melodeath-ish battle charge on The Day of Justice, or the acoustics and atmospherics applied to the intro to Prisoner of War, or the whole of the solemn acoustic number, Greyson. All these elements converge in the monumental closer, The Last Relapse. It opens on a solemn, marching rhythm that accompanies choir vocals from Hermida which evokes the sense of apocalypse even further as after it ends it launches into a savage battery of fast lead guitar, chugging bass, and a thrashy melodeath riff all to come to a climax with a solo pouring out with sorrowful emotion and righteous anger while closing on a softer, more somber sound which fades into pianos which appear at the end, signalling that the war is finally over. What a way to conclude an album, and with that, The Last Relapse has become one of my favorite closers in extreme metal, Making The Price of Existence one of the most brilliant deathcore releases out there.

The Price of Existence dodges a lot of what many people consider to be annoying about metalcore and deathcore. Deathcore tropes like pig squeals and breakdowns are handled with more tact and temperance on The Price of Existence so as not to overload the album or make it feel disjointed. The stereotypical chugging is mostly reserved for the bass and meant to accent the wild and crushing lead guitar riffs. the songs are all written smoothly and with more in mind than simply being brutal mosh music. They wrote a destructive masterpiece through balance, individuality, and creativity and shattered the perception that deathcore was a blah genre in and out. No! They set out to give us deathcore's first big hurrah, and they succeeded with resounding destructive power.

I've noticed an interesting trend in how I, a person with only a cursory or moderate interest in deathcore as a valid musical outlet, differ with the 'core' audience of the style in personal perceptions of what makes one of these records good or bad. A lot of dudes are looking for something as brutal and fistfight-worthy as possible, with little regards to the musicality involved, the ambitious or innovative grounds being staked out by the artist as to how they can distinguish themselves from a whole horde of other brutal death or metalcore outfits. They don't want anything to get in the way of that sheer physicality...I mean at the extreme end, I've known fellas who go to gigs to fight, not to give a shit about the music, although strangely enough some of these guys seem to simultaneously respect and air guitar to soulless technical noodling...basically two ends of the spectrum in complexity, colliding. Is this what metal has boiled down to today for the audience first reared on hardcore, metalcore and nu metal?

Whereas, I'm sort of the opposite...I want to hear how this urban/suburban blight might transform itself from the same breakdown shit I've heard repeated over and over since the former half of the 90s, into something more memorable and compelling in riffing choices. Truth be told, I'm all about the songwriting, which dates back to my own experiences delving into metal since a very young age in the late 70s...not that 'songwriting' precludes a heavily mosh/breakdown-based palm-mute panorama by any means, but how those sequences are often balanced against other to create something I want to listen to repeatedly (or not, but in that case they would have to be some truly infectious slugfests). I bring this up because, as they've progressed through the years, All Shall Perish seem to be of the same mindset, ramping up the melodic death metal influences in their songs as they've grown their audience and musical proficiency. The Price of Existence is almost instantly a more musical entity than its predecessor Hate.Malice.Revenge, thanks to the faster melodic picking and attention to spurious leads, but clearly the beatdown rhythms have not themselves 'perished', since they comprise much of the support to the flightier, fickle guitar work.

I'm not saying it's that much better than the debut, because for all the increased effort the majority of this music is far too quickly forgotten, but here at least as a record I can sit and listen through and actually perceive a handful of ideas that don't bore me straight from the starting gate. This is of course the record where they picked up Hernan Hermida on vocals, and while he's nothing extraordinary in this field he has a pretty seasoned palette of painful growls and sneers that at least surpass his predecessor in quality, as he seems to so effortlessly dive into the faster syllabic passages or belch forth a sustained Tomas Lindberg style snarl. And yeah, At the Gates is still a pretty good comparison, only add in the surplus of fisticuff chugging progressions and dour hardcore chord components circa Hatebreed/Earth Crisis, as well as a slightly more surgical approach to the guitars that involves rapid arpeggiated runs or clinical picking that recalls the operating table thrash that tech death borrowed from European gods of the 80s (sung and unsung) like Pestilence, Carcass and Deathrow. In fact, I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoyed much of the album, but it's got particular pieces that really appeal to my ears, and it simply clobbers that first effort.

Special mention to the bassist, Mike Tiner, who makes himself known here with some swerving and busy grooves and lines that lend a greater depth to the choppier, clinical guitar elements in tunes like "Prisoner of War". The leads, too, while not so scathingly memorable that you'll think of them outside the experience, have a more emotional and melodic range to them ("Better Living Through Catastrophe") which really reinforces that All Shall Perish was not interesting in sticking around Beatcore Browdownland for all eternity, but in achieving that very important balance. Which, honestly, they do here. The Price of Existence falls short of success for me only in the fact that as well-sharpened the band's utensils have become, this specific meal is just not the tastiest you're likely to find. For instance, some of the Job for a Cowboy albums where they went all brutal death are packed with more interesting, catchy riff patterns, and even bands like Carnifex and Whitechapel have been making dramatic improvements to their material, at least in my estimation (like I said, there's a pretty stubborn core audience to this niche which seems adverse to any sort of variation or logical progression).

Yeah, if you're into deathcore for both the breakdowns and musicianship, The Price of Existence is really not a bad place to start. The lyrics are mildly more coherent, and the cover art better, though their logo remained fucking awful. Fortunately, they didn't shitty this up with a bunch of clean radio choruses or any of that Killswitch Engage garbage (approved by soccer moms everywhere), and the fact that this was their first for Nuclear Blast sort of comes with the implication that the production is better. I had no problem with the studio sound for Hate.Malice.Revenge, but this is superior in terms of vocal levels and drums. The addition of the second lead guitarist (Chris Storey) was a wise one, and in fact both guitarists were new here...it was a 60% lineup change with only the rhythm section remaining off the debut. They made some good choices and transformed from the sort of band I could hear just about anywhere I could find a 'core or 'metal' gig, to a potential contender in a West Coast arena that also contained bands like As I Lay Dying and Suicide Silence. There's certainly a sense of 'me too' about this, another bandwagon outfit attempting to capitalize on the success of East Coast commercial metalcore (and The Black Dahlia Murder) by gutting some of its sissy ingredients and incorporating more death metal and gut churning mosh moments...yet that is the worst thing to be said for it (okay, outside of the logo).

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Deathcore is probably the subgenre that spawns the most hate from the metal community these days and there is much reason for it to. It's a genre mostly inhabited by scene kids with very little vocal, lyrical or instrumental skill taking one of the most technically demanding genres in metal and pretty much pussifying it (for lack of a better term) creating music that pretty much any two year student of music can play with ease. "All deathcore is utter shit" was my general attitude until I heard this album.

From the first second, this album pumps pure brutality. You can tell these guy's aren't fucking around. They mean every word. Now, what sets them apart from the hundreds of others bands out there, is they stray far from the typical overdone deathcore formula (verse, br00tal breakdown, chorus Repeat formula). Their songs are constantly evolving, and yes, they do have breakdowns, but the thing is, they are not just put there as placeholders or because they want to sound Br00tal. The breakdowns - along with every other part of the song- are placed tastefully and appropriately.

Each member of the band is a master of his instrument. The Drummer(Adam Pierce) in particular holds my attention. He manages to be extremely fast - relying heavily on blast beats, gravity blast and extremly speedy fills- and extremely technical - showing some pretty impressive polyrythyms- while never overshadowing any of the other aspects of the music.

Hernan Hermida is one of the best death based vocalists I have ever come across . Contrary to other "vocalists" like Mitch Lurker and Oli Sykes( On count your blessings) he has amazing range in his screams. His lows , mids and highs blend effortlessly in all the songs, and he even manages to mix in some blackmetal-esque shrieks in his vocal style. ( see track: Prisoner of War)

Francesco Artusato( lead guitar) and Ben Orum ( rhythm guitar ) have found the perfect mix between heavy chugging guitar with some genuinely jaw dropping technical/melodic bits.

All Shall Perish are a fantastic band. No matter which way you slice it. These guys know how to make music. I cannot point out a song on this album that is not 100% metal. There is a reason All shall Perish are widely known as one of , if not the best deathcore bands ever. They are more of a death metal band with hardcore influences than a hardcore band with death influences. And thats the way it should be.

Seriously. Buy this Album.

For a genre renowned for its lack of inspiration and predictability, All Shall Perish manage to turn deathcore into something vaguely respectable with 'The Price of Existence'. Of course, deathcore will never be the complete package, so the flaws on this release are going to be obvious, but with a bit of patience and a willingness to accept the negatives as a given, then you might be able to get something of worth out of this album.

What’s oddly endearing is that All Shall Perish wear their genre on their sleeve; no attempt is made to try and cover up the fact that they are, controversy of controversies, influenced by metalcore and hardcore. 'Wage Slaves' is the entire rulebook of breakdowns and chug sections rolled into one song, syncopated drumming and palm muted chords flying around all over the place, but the blast beats that are also employed don't try and apologize for this by outstaying their welcome over a stale, heard-it-all-before melodic death metal riff, which comes across more as a tasteful choice rather than a childish protest of brutality.

'There is No Business to be done on a Dead Planet' is more like what you would expect, although again it manages to avoid being totally run of the mill thanks to the impressive drum work of Matt Kuykendall, whose gravity blasts provide the song with enough momentum to prevent the attention from drifting too far. Other qualities have somehow been forged into the melting pot elsewhere on this release as well. ‘Eradication’, the albums opener, has streaks of tech death weaved into its fabric, calling to mind a simplified Necrophagist, while ‘The True Beast’ takes a more groovy approach, mainly fuelled by tremolo picking and double bass footwork.

Despite this album’s merits, it was always going to arrive at a point where things stagnate and become generally dull. The band, to their credit, try to make things interesting, but there just aren’t enough ideas here to explore further and experiment with. The consequence of this is that they are, unfortunately, relegated to churning out anonymous chug riffs that any band are easily capable of, which cheapens the better music available on ‘The Price of Existence’. I am loathe to lay the faults of this CD solely on the doorstep of the band themselves, because the songwriting held some pleasant surprises (the epic-turned-blast-fest ‘Prisoner of War’ and the solo in ‘Eradication’ were nice touches) but the genre they subscribe to simply doesn’t allow them to be as creative with their ideas as they can be. What’s worse is that this isn’t a terrible release, and so the band will probably be content with releasing slightly-better-than-mediocre deathcore, as opposed to branching out towards more inspiring styles of metal.

‘The Price of Existence’ is an exhibition of what are some of deathcore’s better moments. This isn’t a genre that many people seem all that concerned with exploring too deeply and so it provides a pretty comprehensive catalogue of what to expect for those who do have a passing interest. If you haven’t heard much deathcore before then this release is without doubt one of the more well rounded albums to come from the scene. If on the other hand you are familiar with the genre, then you won’t find much on this album you haven’t heard elsewhere, which is a shame to say about a band who under other circumstances would be making far better use of their potential.

The tracks I heard off this album before purchasing it somehow fooled me into thinking this was one of those deathcore bands that moved in a more brutal direction ala Suicide Silence, but it turns out they're a rather typical melodic death/metalcore band. How unfortunate. This is another one of those bands who really seem to have gotten popular simply because they were in the right place at the right time; there's very little here that I can say is particularly different from any other band in the same style; perhaps they were just the first to send their demo off to Nuclear Blast. 'The Price Of Existence' is a capable but not very notable album; it has good elements to it such as excellent instrumental ability, great production, and catchy songwriting, but I don't see how any of those elements are particularly worthy of note when there's a million other artists doing exactly the same thing.

I guess this is very marginally more brutal than your average melodeath/metalcore release, with a bit more blasting and growling, but overall there's little to differentiate it from anything else. The song structures are rather conventional configurations of melodic riffs versus churning breakdowns, with the slightly novel additions of blasting tremolo sections and some extremely technical lead guitar sweeping at certain intervals. Those additions though add little overall to the compositions and could be removed without the songs being changed. I get the feeling that the band wanted to be more than just an average metalcore band, but instead of fundamentally changing the design of the music they decided just to arbitrarily insert a few things here and there and call it a day. The problem with that is that it's pretty transparent to all but the most superficial listener, and once the proverbial cat is out of the bag that all your song structures and riffs are pretty much the same no matter how many gravity blasts and sweeps there are, people tend to become rather disinterested in listening more.

I can't deny that it's very listenable and professionally composed music, but really all the professionalism in the world doesn't mean much if there's not a lot of definite substance under the sheen of good production and competent musicianship. Really, ask yourself a question while listening to this or a similar album: at any point while listening, does something genuinely unexpected happen? The answer is really going to be no because this is composed to a basic pattern, and while the pattern's not BAD, it's unartistic and ultimately not really worth your time if you're looking for more than some entertainment. Competence is a good thing, but if you have competence alone without inspiration, your competence has to be AMAZING to make up for a lack of originality. And that's the simple problem with All Shall Perish: no matter how 'good' it is, there's really nothing beyond being good. It's filler music. It's good for filler, but filler it remains.

This album is, in my opinion, one of the best metalcore/deathcore albums to come out in 2006. Though having some metalcore feels in every song i thought that this album offered more than most metalcore albums do. This album lyrically didnt focus on all life struggles and personal issues which i feel alot of metalcore does now. They instead wrote more about society and real topics. This made the album less... for lack of a better word bitchy. I didnt find myself annoyed with hearing all of their life issues like i do with alot of metalcore.

The instrumentals in this album were all and all pretty decent. The drums are the by far the most vivid and noticeable throughout the album, which may be one reason i liked it so much seeing as though i myself am a drummer. But not only are the drums just loud but they are also at times pretty creative and pleasurable to listen to by themselves. It was good to see another band that doesnt just stick to double bass and blast beats every song but instead actually get creative as a musician and a drummer.

I felt that the guitar in this album could have been better. Don't get me wrong some of the solos were entertaining and skillfull but all and all i thought there could have been some more memorable riffs in here. Alot of the riffs that were actually decent were dronned out by vocals and drums. Like i said it was not by any means all terrible. The solo in Better Living Through Catastrophe was good, the intro to We Hold These Truths... was also enjoyable, and in countless other spots the guitar was profound and entertaining. The problem was just that, in some spots it was good not throughout the whole album and i found myself wondering where the talent in the guitar went.

The vocals. Since they got a new vocalist for this album alot of people are looking for any reason to criticize him. I personally think he is the best vocalist they have had and that he does a great job. He also has a great vocal range, from growls to shrieks to screams. He sure as hell can get up there in his vocals and also incredibly low with his growls and gutterals and is incredible to listen to.

Bass? Where? Though i am not big into bass i still did not hear the bass much at all. It is usually semi difficult to pick out the bass in alot of metal but this album made it nearly impossible. The fact that there were no bass solos didnt help either.

The light instrumentals in Greyson and the beggining of The last Relapse were well done and skillfully put together and for being able to blend the singing, violin and piono with still a heavy song towards the middle and end i commend them. It is refreshing to see that artists have more musical ability than just the mondane scripted metal alot of bands in this genre fall into.

Overall i really enjoyed this album and would recommend you give it a listen. I am anticipating their album coming out in 08 and hope they build upon what they have already created in past albums.

All Shall Perish are in my opinion, the most impressive band amongst the ever so popular core scene because of one reason, that being this very album, The Price of Existence. I must admit their debut Hate, Malice, Revenge just didn’t click for me even after countless listens; in fact, its mind-numbing insipidness almost convinced me to dismiss the band entirely. However, with a new vocalist now on board, All Shall Perish have suddenly garnered my attention and gained a new fan and a reasonably happy one at that.

So, what makes their second effort better than the previous failure? Well, I don’t really have a definite answer, but everything is just so much more memorable. There are more hooks and grooves to be found as well as more extreme, complex sections such as the brutal onslaught of blistering sweep picking, blast-beats and intense double bass that kick off the album. “Eradication’s” abrupt, opening assault is shortly followed by Hernan's shattering high-pitched screams and equally devastating mid-range growls. Hernan’s range is much more to my liking compared to the previous vocalist, and overall the vocals are much more perceptible, with the exception of his abysmal pig-squealing which is fortunately kept to a minimum. His high-pitched screams are also completely ear shattering and his guttural lows and grunts are just plain grueling. “Prisoner of War” even features his best Abbath impression, and while they're no where near as raw and evil as the Son of Northern Darkness’ legendary shrieks, they’re still pretty impressive. The main problem vocally is the over-excessive use of gang vocals included into the majority of all the even more excessively used breakdowns, which are far too repetitive for their own good and just become an annoyance after a while.

Matt Kuykendall’s drumming performance is the highlight here, as he really knows how to play and has some damn impressive chops. His blasts and double bass drum work are extremely consistent and he is able to hold them for extended periods of time without becoming sloppy. He also utilizes gravity blasts in the song “There is No Business to be Done on a Dead Planet” and holds them for quite a while too. His drumming never gets boring either; throwing in lots of little splash cymbal hits on the off-beat accompanied by lots of fills on the toms and mixing them together well. My only problem with the drumming is that it is far too heavily triggered, with every single double bass drum stroke literally sounding exactly the same. This pissed me off particularly during the closing minute of “The Last Relapse” where every single hit is a carbon-copy of the rest and it really disrupts the atmosphere of it all. Other than that, the song is nicely executed, maintaining brutal intensity as well as an epic, melodic feel and is one of the stronger tracks on the album.

The guitarists know how to shred and put the majority of deathcore guitarists to shame. The guitar solos in “Eradication” and “Better Living Through Catastrophe” are my favourites, featuring lots of sweep picking sections performed at lighting speed and some more melodic, tremolo picking passages. Riffing ranges from melodeath inspired string-skipping to lots of palm-muted chugging, which combined with the drop B tuning and heavily distorted tone make the breakdowns and half-time grooves sound extremely heavy.

I don’t really pay much attention to the drivel most metalcore and deathcore lyricists spew out because it's either usually whiney shit about relationships or hamfisted stupidity about gore, torture and decapitation, however, All Shall Perish’s lyrics are far more interesting. Matt, the drummer of the band came up with the name All Shall Perish while he was “Sitting in his room in Berkeley, California, reading news websites and thinking about the fucked up shit going on in the world and my own life at the time.” This is pretty much what the lyrical content revolves around, addressing issues such as society’s flaws, corruption and war.

Receiving frequent rotation, The Price of Existence is my favourite deathcore album made so far and is a vast improvement from their previous effort which I recommend avoiding completely. Instead, give this one a shot for some solid, extremely energetic fun.

But damn are they trying way too hard to be intense.

Intensity in metal albums should manifest itself through awesome and chaotic riffs, hardcore drumming, and speed. This album only has hardcore drumming, and they really show it with the production. All I can hear is the drums and vocals, which might say why upon the first listen this album is so fucking loud and in-your-face, the production is LOUD AS FUCK! Which is not a substitute for FUCKING HEAVY!

This album doesn't have shit on other bands of similar genre like Between The Buried And Me. The riffs (if you actually concentrate and listen) are simplistic, mathematical, rhythmic, and downright boring. Sure the vocals and drums are hard and angry, and the production brings them out above the guitars, but it's not an intensely written album. The intensity is in the production.

Having said that, it has some redeeming points. We Hold These Truths is an awesome song, because the riffs are audible, fast, and heavy. The introduction is apocalyptic and epic, and then the riffs are nice and melodic while maintaining heaviness. Promises has a cool riff at 1:50 too. It's not necessarily original or creative, but at least it's fun to listen to.

Overall, it's intense, but for all the wrong reasons. Buy it if you like being pummeled in the face by drumming, or if you like listening to obscenely loud music in your car. Don't expect stellar or even creative riffs though.

All Shall Perish is one of the better deathcore bands in my opinion. Along with the likes of As Blood Runs Black, Knights of the Abyss, Despised Icon, and others, they definitely lead the genre.


The Price of Existence may not be "tr00 m3t4ls" for you, but it's still definitely a more than enjoyable album, providing some very good instrumentation. The guitars are simply awesome, going from grinding break downs to high, very fast lead riffs. There's even an acoustic interlude-type song, "Greyson", which breaks the brutality quite nicely. The bass is not too prevalent on this album, however it has it's good moments. About halfway through "Prisoner of War", the bass comes in with a good groovy line, ushering in the guitars into a very nice riff. The drums, as is always required of a band of this speed and genre, are very talented. Blast-beats and high speed double-kicks are everywhere, with some very good fills here and there. The vocals are very good, ranging from the higher, Hatebreed-esque yells, to the low, piggy squealing growls. There's even a choir that comes in on the last track, "The Last Relapse", combining with the growling vocals and creating a very interesting sound.


However, there are a few things that take away from this album. The breakdowns sound pretty much all the same, all using stereotypical open-string riffs, sometimes with a lead riff layered over it, also usually ending in the same pinched harmonic note. The pinch harmonics always sound the same, and they don't change up the solos that much either, and by the end of the album, you're wondering if they just changed up the solo a few times and put it in almost every song.


All in all, The Price of Existence is a good album, and if you like ANY kind of death metal or hardcore, check it out.


Highlight tracks: 4) There Is No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet, 5) Better Living Through Catastrophe, 6) Prisoner Of War, 9) The True Beast, 11) The Last Relapse

ASP's sophmore effort, The Price of Existence, is a far cry from the brutal "smash-your-face-against-a-wall", Hate. Malice. Revenge. ASP incorporates some very intricate guitar work, not heard very often in deathcore, or death metal for that matter. Chris Storey's harmonic riffs and solos proves All Shall Perish to be a truely unique band that is ever-evolving.

My initial reaction to this album was not a positive one. "Greyson" and "The Last Relapse" threw me off quite a bit after listening to H.M.R. religiously. Even "Wage Slaves" did not seem to be the ear bleed enducing brutality that is All Shall Perish. But after a few listens, these songs proved to be nothing more than an ode to ASP's versatility. They can adopt any form of musical styling (in this case, a power metal-esque one) and turn it into a heavy-hitting death metal ("deathcore", for those who wish to be politically correct) track.

Many long for the return of Craig Betit's gutteral vocalwork, but for the new aspect of their music ASP is undertaking, the diverse vocals of Eddie Hermida do a much better job of accenting the power guitar work.

All-in-all, I'm very thrilled with this release. It posesses a truely unique sound for both All Shall Perish, and deathcore as a whole.

Following All Shall Perish's debut, Hate.Malice.Revenge, people met The Price of Existence with fairly high expectations. The former record became something of an underground success due to its thrashy stylings, brutal breakdowns, superb production, and lyrical direction. All Shall Perish isn't doing anything particularly new- metalcore infused liberally with elements of death metal- but they know exactly what they're doing. It's tough to argue with a band that cites Suffocation, Opeth, and Meshuggah as only a few of their influences.

If there's one thing this record doesn't have, it's the crushing production of Hate.Malice.Revenge. The guitars are more scooped, the bass drums triggered to hell and back, and the bass, while not inaudible, maintaining a frequency that ends up being difficult to hear amidst the chaos. This is a shame, because the basslines are often fairly interesting. However, this is a minor point, as the album still sounds very nice, and the production works for the much faster material on this album.

All Shall Perish have a fairly unique sound within the technical metalcore/deathcore genre, tending to opt more for Necrophagist-esque sweep picking than JFAC-style groove riffs and triplet chugging. They still love a good breakdown, however, and this record has a lot of good ones. The vocals are incredibly varied, and incorporate almost every metal vocal style from ree's to brutal death growls to high-pitched screams, but nevertheless aren't anything new or exciting. They work, and that's about it. The drums are relentlessly fast and commanding with many blast beats and a tastefully used amount of double bass work.

The lyrics are an interesting element. The album's themes are based on the idea of the downfall of society in desolate, urban areas. Capitalist corruption, war, and the apocalypse are the main fare here, and while again, it isn't anything new, it provides a nice change from the typical love-hate-relationship junk so prevalent in metalcore. The Price of Existence is certainly an emotional record with a fair number of somber melodies, but the songs are less about whining than they are about dark soliloquoys.

The material, unfortunately, isn't varied in the least. Almost every track sounds like the last, with the exception of the (somewhat) acoustic instrumental Greyson. This is something that even generic death metal can often pull off far better than metalcore- unique song structures. Still, songs like Wage Slaves and There Is No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet work their way around Pantera-style grooves that are memorable enough. Prisoner Of War is by far the most interesting song on the record, sounding almost identical to a "deathcore" version of Naglfar.

Don't pick up The Price of Existence if you're looking for something progressive or varied like Between The Buried and Me or The Red Chord. But if you just want some technical, brutal metalcore, definitely give The Price of Existence a try. It's certainly a fun record, and I hope to see this band expand upon some of the musical ideas they've developed here.

This is an amazing combination of Hardcore Punk and Death Metal. The vocals range from true death-grunts to punkish screams and black metal shrieks. The album has it all, blast beats, blistering guitar spots, and some decent drum work as well.


If you don't like extreme music, this isn't for you! This album is for the fan of extreme music genres like Death Metal, Black Metal, Grindcore, and of course, Metalcore. The blast beats on here are very well done and really hit you right in the gut. The guitars are really tuned low for that brooding atmosphere and for viscious breakdowns that make you feel like you're on a fucking roller-coaster! The drums on this album are equally punishing and make Lamb of God's "New American Gospel" sound like shit.


The vocals are equally as menacing as the guitars and blast beats. These guys scream, growl, grunt, shout, and shriek their way into your head like a bad dream! About every song has a variety of vocal sylings from almost every extreme form of music. This adds to the already overpowering instruments making for one loud-ass jam session! The lyrical themes revolve around standing up for yourself and taking down your enemies which is much better then that Emo bitching shit.


I reccommend this album to anyone who is a fan of extreme music, namely Death Metal and Metalcore. This album is for fans of Kataklysm, Blind Guardian, Bleeding Through, Mastadon, As I Lay Dying, and all the other great extreme bands out. Pick this album up if you want some crazy music that keeps your head banging and your fists pumping.

This record is a very interesting listen to say the least. I have never heard a band do it quite like this before. Take a Morbid Angel influence and mix with the likes of Unearth and other breakdown heavy groups, yet with a very technical inclination and a ferocious vocal attack with a variety of tones and you have The Price of Existence.


The band is impressive to say the least. They know who their influences are and they don't try to hide the fact that they thouroughly enjoy the casual breakdown. The thing is there are a lot of blast beats and teched out parts à la Suffocation or Gorguts, with intricate guitar parts and sweep picking galore. The vocalist is fantastic. This guy has a range that would make most guys shit their pants. Shrieking highs to bowel crunching lows as well as more forced harsh vocals, this guy can do it all.

The problem with the record is that it can get a bit boring. Some of the midpaced stuff drags on for too long and some of the songs stagnate a little. There are even a few jazz moments thrown in for good measure, but they aren't as cool as the ones Morbid Angel do. THe musicianship is top notch, but sometimes the songwriting needs to ante up a little.

However there are some absolutely killer fucking tracks on here, the first three to take note of. It's just somewhere along the way, it doesn't get ''BAD'' per say, just not as interesting.

Definitely a band to look out for in the future.