Beecher
Breaking the Fourth Wall

October 2005
Released: 2005, Earache
Rating: 0.0/5
Reviewer: Madman

I hate Beecher and I expect to be compensated for having to listen to both of their albums…



Beecher are a noise/emo/hardcore band from Manchester. This album, the band’s debut, BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL, was originally released in 2003 but sees a wide release this year on Earache. Tacked onto the end of the album is a BBC Rock Show session from 2003 as well as a different edit of the second track on the album.



When I listen to Beecher I hear everything I hate about current hardcore. I hear some of that emo-ness of bands like Alexisonfire or The Used, a touch of Killswitch Engage, a little bit of Refused, and at times the anti-melody of bands like DEP or December. Bottom line? Metalheads won’t like this, at least I hope not. Hopefully if you were reading this, you aren’t now, but just in case…



As much as I dislike this album, there are riffs thrown around here and there that are kind of enjoyable. Usually the more enjoyable parts are more akin to standard rock and roll riffs, like the beginning of “Let Them Drown” which is mildly enjoyable till the off-key vocals come in. The boring “Dead for Weeks” just drags and drags, the band keeps jumping from trying to rock and trying to be noisy. Yeah, it’s noisy and loud but just being noisy isn’t really making good music nor is it being “inventive” (as the back of the promo implies). I mean, what’s with the nonsense chorus? Or the boring 1-2 chug with space sounds in the background? “Burning Surface” sounds like your standard modern screamo song, at least to me (admittedly I’m not a scholar on the subject). The opening of “Arrow Flies” is about as annoying as the rest of the song i.e. very. The whole thing just sounds so hideously random, from the way the riffs are constructed to the way the song is put together.



Honestly, from here on out, things don’t get any prettier they just become more and more annoying. Not that the songs later on are necessarily worse, cause the whole album is horrible, but once you get halfway through you’ve already been listening to this for almost a half hour and a half hour of this shit is about all I can take in a single sitting. I made it through the album, at least for the sake of this review, but this thing is going in the trash…