About.com Rating

With an utterly fantastic production job turned in by Josh Wilbur, who shaped albums for Gojira and Lamb of God, The Order of Things from All That Remains is a master’s class of what hard rock can sound like and how a well-rounded album should be constructed.

All the hits are up front and all the crunchy metallic stuff are in the back. Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) was involved in all but one of the previous ATR albums going back to 2002, including their most successful, A War You Will Never Win (2012).

He helped grow the band, but Josh Wilbur takes them to the prom.

“Pernicious” is the surprise song on the album. IF you listen closely enough, Wilbur has snuck an amazing amount of Gojira basics into the arrangement. Metalcore and melodic, it has a sense of adventurous creativity that is breathtaking… once you put your Meshuggah baseball cap on the pile of dirty laundry next to your bed.

Frontman Phil Labonte counters the Gojira touches with an infectious amount of soul. Bassist Jeanne Sagan even gets a couple of lines, which adds to the track instead of junking it up with the old chick-gimmick vocal that bands use when they overreach. “Fiat Empire,” which isn’t a treatise on a world of Italian econoboxes but rather a lyrical reflection on life and legacy, or something, is fairly hard and hardly compact.

“For You” is that hit song that the marketing department red-lasers into the eyes of the soul of any potential non-metal album customer. It’s the same diaper-load of a song that blights every country record lately.

It’s a by-the-numbers acoustic opening with building verses that explode into 16 bar chord inversion choruses type of track that you’ve heard everywhere since Incubus days.

The final decision is always left up to the customer. The Order of Things may tick off enough of the checkboxes to satisfy your metal criteria checklist. If you’re a metal purist, this won’t pass the test. But, if you don’t mind taking a walk to discover what sits outside of your neighborhood, All That Remains might be a nice surprise.
(released February 24, 2015 on Razor & Tie)