Stray From The Path - Only Death Is Real Rating: 5/10 You can trace the moment Stray From the Path’s decline began back to “iMember” from arguably their last widely-respected album, Rising Sun. It’s not a standout song on the album, nor is it a lowpoint; it features a clip of a former Attack Attack! vocalist that draws a pretty clear division between between the ideologies of a band blatantly in it for the fame and a band that ostensibly wasn’t. It seems like a minor thing, but it’s that little “i” and its allusion to Apple and the iPod that, I think, signals the beginning of a long slope downward for Stray. On Anonymous, which pushed the Rage Against the Machine comparisons right in the faces of listeners, the dated pop-culture jabs became a little more pronounced with “Counting Sheep” and it’s refrain to “Post that pic with a hashtag / You wanna get mentioned because you need the attention / And you can repost this cause I don't give a shit / If you got something to say well you tag me in it,” making obvious allusions to Facebook and Twitter while also demonstrating a meatheaded edginess that didn’t sit well with a lot of listeners (including me). This continued on Subliminal Criminals with the cringe-worthy “First World Problem Child,” turning a popular internet meme into a tone-deaf hardcore song, and has reached a new head with “Goodnight Alt-Right” from the album at hand, Only Death Is Real. The new Stray From the Path record starts shaky and never recovers, with “The Opening Move” coming across like the second half of an unremarkable Anonymous b-side, although “Loudest In The Room” proves to be an early highlight with a pseudo-mathy groove, some quick-wristed drumwork, and a breakdown full of panic chords and crashing china. Of course, “Goodnight Alt-Right” is up next, and while it’s bad, I will argue that it’s not a total failure--the band sounds more energetic than they have in a while going into the “Nazi punks fuck off” breakdown, and York, despite some truly mediocre lyricism, at least spits it with conviction. Very little of interest occurs for the next two songs, other than the cringe-worthy chant of “Money makes the world go round / Money makes the world burn down” on “Let’s Make A Deal” (another prod at Trump?) and the dialed-up hardcore feel of “They Always Take the Guru,” but “Plead the Fifth” caught me off-guard with its undulating introduction, which segues into vintage Evil Empire. The album’s best run of songs begins here and lasts through “Strange Fiction,” “All Day & Night,” and “The House Always Wins,” although it certainly says something that three of the four feature prominent guest spots. “Strange Fiction” throws backs to “Loudest In the Room” with pounding staccato riffs and an anthemic chorus, keeping the pot boiling until Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley swoops in on the closing breakdown to breathe fire--but what else is new for Keith? He doesn’t sound quite in his element since Stray doesn’t have an ounce of the southern tinge of his native band’s music, but he brings some needed spark to Only Death Is Real. Bryan Garris serves a similar purpose on “All Day & Night,” but Stray do more to accommodate him, pulling off a pretty convincing Knocked Loose facsimile for his entrance on the second verse. His shrill scream has chemistry with York’s, and I wouldn’t doubt (or mind) future collaborations on either band’s records. “The House Always Wins” was released long before Only Death Is Real, but the angular approach has started to wear thin at this point in the album, inching ever closer to faceless djenting rather than the funky rhythmicality of Rising Sun, or even Anonymous. Vinnie Paz’s rapped verse injects exactly that into the song, but it comes a little too late and is superseded by a tiring breakdown and a final, equally tiring repetition of the chorus. The actual closer is also the title track, usually a highlight of Stray records; but despite a promising start and a solid Morello riff toward the middle, “Only Death Is Real” treads water to end on a confusingly unearned chain-gang chorus of voices moaning the song’s refrain: “Death is after your soul.” You can learn all you need to know about the decay of Stray From The Path’s sound and image by listening to the songs referenced earlier in order, their sonic trajectory illustrating in broad strokes how the band’s once innovative aping of Rage Against the Machine in the context of hardcore has devolved into a stale hybrid of nu-metal and hardcore. It’s a case study in diminishing returns, of which Only Death Is Real is the most diminished yet. The root of the problem is that, even accounting for a slight creative uptick on Subliminal Criminals, every album from Rising Sun has increasingly relied on Drew York and its breakdowns to get by, neither of which are enough to sustain a fanbase; and if the latest Stray From the Path record proves one thing, it’s that the more time York spends rapping over heavy riffs, the more Limp Bizkit creeps in, replacing the Rage influences that made them worth following in the first place. The bottom line is that, as often as I may agree with their overall message, I’d prefer not to experience flashbacks to “Full Nelson” when I listen to hardcore. -Brian L.
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