We Came As Romans has made such a good name for themselves, and their music gets better all-around with everything that they release. When I first heard of “Tracing Back Roots” being recorded, I was beyond stoked for the album, literally. I was so happy that the band went back into studio, after they recorded their re-issue of “Understanding What We've Grown To Be”. The new songs on the re-issue had me super excited for a new album from the dudes in We Came As Romans. I was ready for it, and the first single had me wanting the album so badly. Then once the band released “Fade Away”, something made me a lot less excited. “Fade Away” had the screamer doing cleans, and I don’t think I enjoyed that very much. It’s not that I’m a person who doesn't like when bands change, it’s just my opinion. It sounds like their screamer is better than their clean vocalist, in some ways. I love both of their vocalists, I've met them, and it was a pleasure talking to them. I've seen their clean vocalist at his worst, and his best, which is the reason why I love this band as much as I do. I've seen them do well, and I've seen them do not so well, live. They've improved a lot on this release, I’m not going to lie about that. It really is highly enjoyable. And yes, their screamer does more clean vocals on this album, and none of them are bad. There’s just something about “Fade Away” that I didn't like at all. Both of the vocalists have some great clean vocals, and I've heard their clean vocalist do screams, once, live. His screams were decent. Both vocalist have great vocals. A few songs that stand out on this album would have to be, “Tracing Back Roots”, “I Survive (ft. Aaron Gillespie)”, “Present, Future, and Past”, “Never Let Me Go”, “I Am Free”, and “Through The Darkest Dark And The Brightest Bright”. Tracing Back Roots”, started the album off on a great note, and it definitely shows off their heavy side pretty quickly on the album. The guitars in my opinion are what really made this song a favorite of mine. Plus, their screamer tries to make his vocals have a fast flow to them. This is something that he tends to do on songs, which makes him sort of an original, or unique aspect of the band. “I Survive (ft. Aaron Gillespie)” is a great song. I’d be lying if I said that Aaron Gillespie didn't help this song get its touch. Both Aaron, and Kyle, have vocals on this song that make this song a different type of a song for We Came As Romans. Which in my opinion, impresses me more with the band. I can’t wait to see what the next We Came As Romans album will hold, if there’s more songs like this one, I’ll probably like it. “Present, Future, And Past”, is probably my second favorite song on this album. The lyrics on this song, are some of my favorites from We Came As Romans. These two lines are my favorites on the song, and also some of my favorites on the album: “Like a forest burning, time is running out, and the tides keep turning, I am here I am now”, and “You are a cancer, You are the dying breed of the old age”. Those two lines just popped out at me when I first gave this album a listen. Now for “Never Let Me Go”, in my opinion this song sounds like a love song with the lyrics, or something else in that type of category. I don’t know the full meaning of the song (sadly), but if it’s a We Came As Romans song, it has to have a lot of meaning to the band. Most of the songs that We Came As Romans write, have to do with something that their fan base can relate too. This is another thing that makes We Came As Romans stand out against other bands. No band is perfect, that I can agree too. Every band picks something else to write about, some of the time it’s meaningless, or doesn't have a vivid meaning, but when it comes to We Came As Romans, their meanings are vivid. Sure, they aren't perfect (even though I've been told by many people they are), they’re one of the bands that will always be about their fans, and as long as they keep it that way they will continue to get support from me. ‘Never Let Me Go” is another type of song that I hope to see on the next release, honestly. “I Am Free”, Is my favorite song on this whole album, and this song is a good example of a song with a vivid meaning. We Came As Romans pretty much puts it out there, which is something that makes them stand out more in this music scene. I think it’s impossible to actually hate We Came As Romans, honestly. They’re a bunch of open minded guys writing music to support their fans. “Through the Darkest Dark and Brightest Bright” is another favorite of mine, not just a favorite on the album, but a favorite overall. This songs ends off the album beautifully, and packs a punch when it comes to meaning. The meaning is out there, like it was in “I Am Free”, and it actually means something deep.

Breakdown:

Cleans: The clean vocalist has improved a lot. As I see it, his range has gotten better, and the fact on the song with Aaron that he was able to have the same clean vocals as him (or as it sounds, he copies him a bit in a good way.) was amazing. The clean vocalist also improved his vocal range in order to get a bit higher. In my books, this is another big plus for the band on the unique aspects.

Screams: Besides doing the clean vocals, the screamer impresses me overall. Now, I’m not going to say that the screamer should never do clean vocals, he actually should do those more, but there was something about them on “Fade Away” that I just didn't enjoy. Other than that, the rest of the songs that he sang clean vocals in, were splendid. His screams have improved a little bit also. His range is where it has improved. He’s now able to get a little lower than he used to be able to, which is something that caught me off guard.

Rating: 8/10

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