Structures released their rather promising debut EP All Of The Above last year, and this follow-up LP certainly lives up to the promise they delivered. It's everything the EP was and then more - quite literally too, since the best couple songs off All Of The Above, "Encounter..." and "In Pursuit Of", were re-recorded for the release.
The re-recordings are a great addition and really serve to showcase the band's improving songwriting, with various recording changes and new bells & whistles nearly making them feel like new songs. One odd addition is the strange new style of clean vocals, which seem a little misplaced amongst the chaotic and heavy music. Though they distance Divided By's style slightly from that of the EP, it's not necessarily a change for the worse.
As with many metalcore albums though, it's all fairly hit-and-miss. Far from perfect, whilst there are a fair few epic songs, others can be pretty forgettable. One just hopes that the band manages to utilise the elements that make their music interesting more thoroughly in future releases, making similar improvements as from the EP to the LP, rather than turning into just another core band slogging out mediocrity.
Divided ByReleased: 2011
Country: Canada
Genre: Progressive Metalcore
"Encounter..."
"Paralyzed"
FFO: Elitist, Misery Signals, The Contortionist
