2Band: NoLoveLost
Title: Without Beginning, Without End
Label: Red Cord Records
Release Date: June 2011
Reviewer: Joshua Clark
Tracklisting:
- Tyler Ate the Intro
- You’re Not a Daredevil
- Are You Here to Join the Party?
- You Are So Mad
- Hope
- First Step to Recovery
- Wait Until the End
- Ewww This is Bob
- Sargent Tie Cheated at Monopoly
- Stay.Real.
- An Elephant Graveyard is No Place for a Young Prince
NoLoveLost is a scene/post-hardcore band that is signed to Red Cord Records. For the most part I don’t find their sound to be overly unique but instead to be rather typical of the genre. They play the style well enough, but I just feel like I have heard plenty of bands like this before and NoLoveLost doesn’t stand out much more than the dozens of others like them. Breakdowns are plentiful and bog down the album; the novelty wears off after a few tracks. This particular formula hurts the band in diversity and making each of their songs sound too alike song to song. The band did mix in some electronic and unique drumming grooves that seemed to work well for them, but I don’t think was focused on enough. Occasionally there was a cool riff here or there that perked my interest, but there wasn’t enough of that throughout the whole album to keep me captivated. The instrumental “Stay.Real.” is a good example of the bands more unique aspects and was a pretty enjoyable instrumental. What I thought were some of the bands best tracks where “Are You Here To Join The Party?” “Wait Until The End” and “An Elephant Graveyard is No Place for a Young Prince.”
Vocally, the screams actually are pretty strong; there just isn’t enough variety in the screaming to make it stand out. When you get the same yells and deep growls for all eleven tracks it becomes rather monotonous. Between the vocals and instruments both having a similar sound throughout the 44 minute run time that hurt my enjoyment of the album. While the clean vocals help a little with this, I wasn’t really a fan of how they sounded, too whiny for my tastes. As far as the songwriting is concerned, it is rather solid and shows the band’s faith very clearly.
Overall: I didn’t really care for this album too much, other than a few songs I liked. It’s not bad but when the bands particular genre isn’t really my cup of tea in general, the album will have to be better than average for me to really get into it. But if this your thing, chances are if you like one song you will enjoy all of them. With their sophomore album if they can diversify their sound a little more I could see these guys pulling something off pretty cool. But unfortunately with this release NoLoveLost just comes off as a rather average post-hardcore styled band that blends in with many others in the genre.
NoLoveLost - Without Beginning, Without End,
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A college student who really loves music, art, and God. I like a variety of music, heavy rock or metal mainly but pop/rock or worship music also gets it's fair share of listening time. 
| Loren Wade, 2h ago 
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I wonder if this would have received a higher rating from someone who IS into “the band’s particular genre”? I have not heard more than one of these songs, but I did enjoy for the most part what I heard.
for a while, IVM has been running pretty lean so artists/albums are going to get reviewed by those that have the time and are willing to review them
I was wondering if the rating was influenced after all the criticism the ratings were getting for all be a 7 or higher.
I dont believe Josh is going to be influenced by that
I didn’t think so, but I just found it weird that the review after that Life on Repeat one that everyone was freaking out about got a 5.
Yeah that was just coincidental with the whole scoring deal. I try to honestly rate each album I review and try to match up what I right with an accurate score. So I was floating between a 5 or a 6 here but I thought for our rating system, the 5′s description fit best for me – “More Highs Than Lows But Very Generic Effort”
That’s the description for 6. 5 is “pros and cons even out for a mediocre release”
Whoops I can’t copy and paste very well, cause your right that is for 6, thanks for catching that. So the “pros and cons even out for a mediocre release” is what I was going for. Cause there were definitely some good moments, but not enough too really stand out, but that’s just my opinion.
This album is way better than you made it sound.
I agree with Stacie. It seems like this was trashed just because you wanted to show that you can give an album a lower score. I’m not sure I can trust IVM rating anymore.
Not to be rude, but from what I’ve heard, I think this fits the description of the rating Josh has given the album. There are solid sections, but in total, there is little positive material that stands out to me. What does stand out to me: extremely rough transitions (making for “Frankenstein” songs), an overuse of “Risecore” trademarks (reverse snare, a tendency to alternate sludge sections with clean/autotuned choruses, etc.), and some moments of poor vocal writing and performance (gang singing on ‘Are You Here To Join The Party?’). I definitely see potential in some rhythmically interesting sections, but I believe the reviewer’s rating is justified.
that’s why IVM give places to users rating,folks…dont be a complicated moaning person, dude.