Live Review 003-Alesana

Live performance:***     Times Seen:3 

Album Rating:Demo-8.2              

All The Tragedy Money Can Buy (2004) -7.4    

Try This With Your Eyes Closed (2005)-7.4  

On Frail Wings of Vanity And Wax (2006)-8.2                                          

Where Myth Fades To Legend (2008)-7.8

The Emptiness (2010)-7.6

A Place Where The Sun Is Silent (2011)-7.9

Confessions (2015)

Genre:(New Age)Post-Hardcore

Genre 2:Melodic Metalcore

Genre 3:Pop-metal

Genre 4:(weakened) hardcore punk/Screamo

For fans of:Chiodos,Blessthefall,The Word Alive,The Things They Carried,Dance Gavin Dance,Asking Alexandria,A Skylit Drive,high pitched voices, multiple vocalists, tight pants, long haired clones.

Status-Writing                                Label-Just emancipated from Epitaph

Formed in 2004

Alesana is a band that gets a horrible rep. They all have long hair, wear skinny jeans and have high pitched screams and cleans and breakdowns. If you can’t fuck with any of that, then the rest of this review is pointless to you. If you like pop-punk, or new age post-hardcore Alesana may very well be something you’d be interested in. This band has been around for about 10 years, and haven’t changed a whole lot but it’s true that they know what they’re doing live, and have a chaotically fun atmosphere. The first time I saw this band was at The Crazy Donkey, the bassist hung upside down from the ceiling while playing and there were plenty of guitar flips. Aside from all of that, Alesana is pretty good at playing their instruments. The problem is in some songs they utilize this along with capable song writing, but other songs are bland, boring, or even generic that do nothing to set them apart from bands like them.

Best Ex-Friend is a song off of Alesana’s demo that was never seen again but it’s actually one of my favorite tracks. It’s got a nice punk vibe to it, with the post-hardcore elements and the snare is actually addicting. Cool drum work. But for songs you’ll actually see live, there is still a wide variety to choose from. If you want to hear some of Alesana’s instrumental capabilities I talked about earlier, Pathetic, Ordinary is a good start. By no means technical, it could be considered progressive in terms of stuff you usually do not hear in this area of music. What’s this?? A Post-hardcore bassist you can actually hear? How interesting. Tilting The Hourglass is another one where you can see a nice use of the unconventional trio of guitarists. Another thing that made me fall in love with this band (specifically) this album back in 2009 was the melodies. Screams complimented by cleans and vice versa. To hear this the best example would be in Nero’s Decay which they pull off excellently live. The Univeted Thirteenth is a good song if you want to see a little more of what the drummer can do.

The band is solid live, with nice musical blends. I had plenty of fun seeing them back in the day. Unfortunately I have grown out of this type of music a lot, though I do listen for nostalgia from time to time. Not knowing their newer music too well also makes me less interested in seeing them live present day. But if this is still your cup of tea then i’m sure that you will enjoy them.