Review: Taken - And They Slept

artist: taken album: and they slept label: goodfellow released: by: eduardo moutinho Okay, before I begin this review, I’d like to give major props to this band. They’re damn creative, and have helped advance the genre of melodic hardcore. Plain and simple. Taken’s latest release, And They Slept is fantastic. This is a great album. Orange County, California’s Taken is one of those few bands that start out trying to achieve their own sound, instead of copying or emulating sounds with little to no progression. Taken’s music can be described as complex. The band infuses many elements into what they do. The music has hard elements, soft elements, melodic breakdowns, and everything in between. It’s great stuff. The vocals are also unique, since Taken’s vocalist is a big fan of spoken word. You’ll see the vocalist busting out some spoken word in many songs. This is great, and definitely adds uniqueness to the music. Alright, now that you have a primer on this band (assuming you haven’t listened to them), onto the review. The record starts off with the excellent song “Never an Answer.” My oh my, a melodic hardcore band that starts an album out without an instrumental piece, how different… Anyway, this song is awesome. It starts out with a really catchy little string part which immediately goes into a nasty aggressive section with hard vocals, and this ends up in a vicious cycle with string part to hard part and back again. The song ends with an well-done melodic breakdown, with lots of emotion from the singer. Great stuff indeed. The next song up is a slower piece named “Same Story Different Day.” This is another good song, with a great dichotomy of slow music with hard vocals. This album is damn good, if I haven’t said it already. Almost every song on it is worth listening to. “A Coward for You,” “A Typical Cliché,” “Overused History,” and "Overshadowing at 100 East” continues the trend of great songs on this album. “A Coward for You” is a nasty song that starts out with an almost breakdown-like beginning. It’s awesome stuff. “A Typical Cliché,” has a punk flavor to it, with a fast pace. There’s some punk influence, but it’s definitely a hardcore song. The tempo and structure is what this all about. “Overused History” is very similar to “A Coward for You,” and just as good. Overshadowing at 100 East” is another one of the slower kind of songs, but it does have its aggressive moments. This presents another dichotomy, as with "Same Story Different Day." The guitars are exceptional on this offering. Again, I’d like to praise the vocalist for using spoken word along with screaming in the songs, it’s almost emocore in nature, and refreshing. Another song worth honorable mention is “Beauty in Dead Flowers.” This is a good instrumental for once. It’s purely acoustic and very well-done. This band is incredibly talented. Okay, so what are my quandaries with this album? Well, first off, although Taken has a unique, and great, sound, they abuse some elements of it on this record. For example, a few of the songs start with the drummer hitting the high hat, bell, or his sticks rhythmically to start everything off. This is overdone on the album, and it’s hard not to think about this once it’s done for the third time. Sometimes this even happens in the middle of a song, which screws up a transition. "Never an Answer" is an example of this. Also, songs like “A Coward for You” and “Overused History” are a little too similar. The band obviously has good ideas, but using them over and over takes a little of the genius out of this album. But “genius” is indeed a pretty accurate word to describe this album. It’s damn good. favorite song: “a typical cliché” rating: 92%/100% listen to taken