5 Band: Life in Your Way (facebook)
Title: Kingdoms
Label: Come&Live!
Release: October 25th
Reviewer: Brody
Tracklisting:
The Kingdom of Man:
- Forever
- Blind in Retrospect
- Growth in Passion
- Forsaken Me
The Kingdom of Darkness:
- Ruler of the Air
- Take Notes
- Swarm
- Buried Idols
The Kingdom of God:
- Induction
- Who I Am
- Like a River
- The Healer
- The Ascension
I know what you’re thinking. “Another highly rated album? Do these guys get paid to give albums high ratings?”. I have been a frequent visitor to IVM over the last few years and have seen my fair share of these comments, and even seen a few of them fairly recently. I will come right out and say it now, I love Life in Your Way and eagerly anticipated this release since they announced it. I can not even begin to count how many times I watched the promo video on their Kickstarter page. With that being said, I fully expected to be somehow disappointed with this album. However, that nagging “something” the disappointed me is no where to be found on any of the 13 songs on “Kingdoms”. I know not all of you will agree with my score, but I think it is only fitting for an album this moving.
Anyone who knows anything about melodic hardcore is aware that Life in Your Way announced their farewell in 2008 and played their final song in July of that year. Being the new found Life in Your Way fan that I was after witnessing their passionate live show and hearing what I consider to be a masterpiece, “Waking Giants”, I was crushed to hear the news. Wasn’t that just my luck that once I found a band that really stood out to me, they go ahead and die? Needless to say, after I heard the news of their disbanding, I spent many hours sadly listening to “Waking Giants”, chanting all the gang vocal parts sadly to myself. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when in February of 2011 the melodic hardcore legends announced their partnership with Come&Live! and their release of a new record later that year. As I mentioned, I fully expected to be somehow let down by the release since I was so hyped about it. But let me reiterate, I am not disappointed in any way, shape, or form.
Now, enough of my pathetic sob story/anticipation of this album and on to the actual review. Since the album is split into three eps, I will review each separately.
From the opening scream of “Forever!” by Joshua Kellam on the track of the same name, followed by the melodic riffing of all three guitarists, old school fans of Life in Your Way know they are in for a treat. If there is any doubt in your mind that this isn’t the old Life in Your Way you knew and loved back in 2008, by the time Growth in Passion bursts onto the scene with catchy, uplifting singing any doubt will be erased from your mind. The whole “Kingdom of Man” section of “Kingdoms” is pretty text book Life in Your Way. Plenty of harsh screams from Kellam almost equally balanced with the melodic vocals of James Allen as well as equally balanced harshness and melodic instrumentation. It’s almost as if Life in Your Way knew some fans might be a little skeptical that the band was still going to sound the same, which was indeed reassuring for cautious fans like me. The “Kingdom of Man” section is closed out with another highlight track Forsaken Me featuring guest vocals from Matt Wentworth of Our Last Night.
“The Kingdom of Darkness” starts out like a rhino on a slip and slide. Fast and heavy. With riffs and breakdowns so heavy and technical it would make Oh, Sleeper jealous, The Ruler of Air blazes it’s way right into gang chanting of “Don’t be fooled!”. The song features Jake Luhrs of August Burns Red and is sure to be a favorite of anyone who enjoys his band whether you have ever enjoyed Life in Your Way or not. “The Kingdom of Darkness” focuses mostly on the heaviness to fit the dark imagery painted by the lyrics and while some may have a problem with the lack of singing and melody, I find it refreshing to see that Life in Your Way can flex their muscles and show metalcore bands how it’s done.
“The Kingdom of God” makes up for what melody “The Kingdom of Darkness” was lacking. The album starts of with the brief track Introduction With lyrics proclaiming that the kingdom of God is for everyone on this planet. Introduction segues perfectly into This is Who I Am, one of the most moving tracks I have heard all year. Who knew hardcore could ever be this beautiful? Now I know I said “The Kingdom of God” focuses more on melody than being heavy, but that isn’t to say “The Kingdom of God” sounds nothing like Life in Your Way. In fact, the third track, Like a River has a breakdown in it that feels like it could have easily been somewhere on “The Kingdom of Darkness”. The Healer seems to be both a fan favorite and band member favorite due to the lyric from the song, “By His spirit we can heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse lepers, cast out demons” being put on shirts, banners the band brings on stage, and facebook statuses all over the world. Usually with an album this amazing, I am almost always disappointed with the closing track. I usually feel it does not offer a satisfying conclusion to something so amazing. Life in Your Way once again avoided my disappointment with The Ascension. I was pleasantly surprised once the song began and I head the stunning voice of Ascend the Hill’s Joel Davis take the forefront to music that sounds like something AtH would do on one of their songs. The Ascension ends instrumentally with light percussion and bells accompanied by Davis’s soft “ooohs” which all build into a powerful conclusion.
OK, so I have finished gushing all over “Kingdoms”. Please forgive me if you do not share my love in the band or the release. While I do not give many bands 10s, I believe that Life in Your Way have created a solid, front to back release that will be steadily played on my iPod for years to come. All my doubts in the band regaining momentum from their break up have now been relieved and now I can go back to singing my favorite gang vocal parts, but this time in sheer joy as opposed to sadness.
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I am a 19 year old college student, majoring in graphic design. I am a youth leader at my church and like to skateboard and play bass in my spare time. 
| Phil metalhed, 22 mins ago.
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Needless to say, ;)
I didn’t care much for the release, but I dd enjoy at east two of the songs, my favorite being “Who I am”
Thanks for a passionate, if not a a-little-more-than-a-little biased review :)
No problem Marshall ;) You’ll have to trust me that if I thought it sucked I would have given it a poor score, but the fact that I love them and thought it was good, I was content to give it a gushing-with-love review! Who I am is my favorite too I think, it’s a nice way to start off The Kingdom of God.
9/10 from me. Wonderful music to my ears!
9/10 for me. The KoM songs get old fast IMO, but the rest of the album is fantastic. The Ascension is my song of the year right now. Amazing.
i had a hard time picking which EP i liked best, the Kingdom of God is so easy to sing along with, especially Who I Am, what a great song. I’m glad they split it up into EP’s. Good release, i love it, rivals Waking Giants.
9/10 for me as all 3 eps as a whole album. perfect follow up to waking giants imo
I agree with most everybody…Who I Am is awesome
I have a hard time not listening to this. I think I’m in the same boat as you, Brody. I…almost died when I heard they were back together. I’ve been looking forward to this album for soo long and I love it. But I will say that besides “Ruler of Air”, the Kingdom of Darkness ep is my least favorite. The songs on it sorta run together. But I love this release!!! 9/10
I wud say 8/ 10. 10/ 10 is a bit much, lol. Regardless, its a solid concept album+ any music from liyw is always a gud thing, lol. My only beef wit it is that they cuda fit all the songs on 1 disc n just separated the trax into the 3 themes, lol (the total runin time wud stil b less than 50 min). Seems kinda like a waste of plastic, pakagin+ resources 2 me, lol. Kinda like wen thrice did the alchemy index into 4 discs insted of just 2, lol.
Yeah Phil, I’m really not sure why they decided to package it like that… I guess just to drive home the point that it’s 3 separate themes and all, but to some it seems a little over-kill
Brody B,
Agreed, lol.
Originally I think they were going to stagger the releases online.
Kingdom of Darkness is pretty crazy good! If the rest of the eps sounded like those songs I’d give a perfect score. “Who I Am” is the only other good song. Kingdom of Men was sorta lame. The rest of Kingdom of God is good.
I honestly never heard of them until the announcement of the new album, plus I anxiously await anything come and live offers. Also have to say I’m not a huge fan of clean vocals in hardcore/metal…… But this release blew me away. I usually just listen to it on random on my phone. Great stuff. I want to now seek out the older albums. For some reason I want to say it reminds me of dag nasty or gorilla biscuits, not that they sound like that, but just the feel… Am I showing my age?
hm. I thought Kingdom of God was the best, my favorites being “Like a River” and “The Healer”. “Growth in Passion” has about the greatest chorus ever imo, and I loved everything about KoD. I think just about anything from LIYW gets a 10/10 from me
@bradfromtampa: If you get a chance, listen to Life In Your Way’s previous albums, namely “Waking Giants” (although each one is excellent). “Kingdoms” is great, but I feel that the band nailed it on “Waking Giants.” Also, they took a lot of influence from Shai Hulud and Strongarm (and I saw their original drummer wearing a Bane shirt quite often). Not quite as old as Gorilla Biscuits, but the influences that I know of do go back a little ways.
10/10 for me too. album of the year. hands down.
9.8/10 for me cause i think theres something in the recording that shouldn’t be and it sounds wierd :P but thats me nit picking. Its a great concept album and kingdom of darkness definitely has the hardest music of the album but kingdom of God is uplifting and worshipful, making it the big winner for me!!
i give it 11 out of 10 !
I totally agree!!!
20 comments later, here comes the hater…6/10 at best…The packaging even as a concept album is the first and biggest flaw, as 3 eps released separately it makes sense, but released together at one time it makes no sense, and is quite annoying to me to have to change disc’s every 15 mins…Then, the ascension, being the second problem I have. It’s not really a Life in your way song. It’s a great song mind you, maybe my favorite but its really an Ascend the Hill song…Thirdly Kingdom of Man is almost dismissible as it holds none of the sound or weight of either of the other to “Kingdoms”, besides as a concept the Kingdom of man and the Kingdom of Darkness being different makes no sense to me, the Kingdom of Man is the Kingdom of Darkness, were it people, were darkness, hence why we need a Savior, Jesus!…Fourth more about the band and less about the album, a brake up in 2008 a new album in 2011??? that’s a normal amount of time between albums without a breakup, it feels fake to me. Finally, the opening track on Kingdom of God, spoken word, AMAZING!!! Love it. Overall this album is good, the music is strong, the vocals are strong, the drums are loud, It’s a better then average album, but there is too many Life In Your Way crazy fans that over rate them and this album in my opinion.
I respect your opinions, although I do disagree a bit on the score. However, how can you call their intentions “Fake”? What is “Fake” about breaking up then deciding to get back together and record a new album and/or tour? It’s not like they are making millions of dollars by getting back together like say a No Doubt or Blink 182 reunion. Maybe they got back together after feeling some chemistry towards making new music and enjoy the art they make together. Not only that but band’s like them sharing an important message isn’t so commonplace. Anyway, we can all agree to disagree but just don’t call them out as being “fake”, I think that’s a tad unfair.
Too be fair Brandon, he was not calling THEM fake, he was calling their break-up fake. I too think this is a bit of a jump, cause they most definitely did break-up, and this reunion didn’t “pick up” where they left off in the line up…otherwise why would James, Dave and Andy be in the band now and NOT Corey and John? In 2008, they just ran out of fumes. They had a line-up that didn’t have quite the same interest as the past line-ups (this line up too) and therefore just broke down in the middle of a road. 3 years later after all of the (basically Waking Giants era, plus Todd and Andy) have gotten out of all the other projects they were in (besides like The Frozen Ocean) and were able to “relax” and “rethink”…LIYW was reborn (if you will).
So no, no fakeness here dude. Just guys rethinking what was meaningful to them.
Yes, Evan is right I never called them Fake. All I stated was that to me that short of time off feels fake. To me. Not that they are. Line up changes and line up problems are okay with me but I can think of nothing better for long time fans of LIYW then this short of a break-up, it’s Hadley a hiatus. As far as the score Brandon, I agree I like it more then that too, it’s at least a 7/10 not 6 that was a bit low balling this great, FREE, release thru Come & Live, who I LOVE by the way!
whoa, put on the brakes on!
i don’t mind people not loving it. but 3 years might have been a normal time between albums in 1998, but these days bands are putting albums out every 12-15 months.
Not to mention the fact that Waking Giants was released in 2007 as far as I remember. Making it over four years of waiting.
I think it’s an 8. It’s great but I was expecting a little better quality. Not that instrumentation sounds terrible, just seems like there is a little too much compression on everything up till “The Ascension”. Other then that it’s great. In my to albums of the year but not album of the year.
I think this is easily a contender for album of the year (if you put all the EPs together as “Kingdoms” of course).
i didn’t enjoy this at all.
i loved Waking Giants, but the songs on these EP’s sound forced. While Waking Giants featured a more hardcore sound, this stuff is straight up metalcore. i thought i was listening to August Burns Red or something. Also, the spoken word thing is getting to be a bit overdone in the Christian Metal realm. bleh.
I can definitely understand your disappointment with it sounding somewhat metalcore. I felt like KoD was the only set of songs that were straight up metlacore and that while some of the other songs had influence that it wasn’t overpowering. Thanks for the comment though dude, I’m glad to see so many opinions.
I’d give it an 8/10.
I LOVE this album. I give it a 10/10 too. AWESOME review Brody!
thanks for all the kind words and critiques, we’ve never expected to please everyone and try to simply write music that we love.
this album was a lot of fun and hard work to make happen, it’s great seeing so many people enjoying it.
Great review! …was fun to read and I could feel the passion of a real fan and the excitement for a band that’s always been something like the “musical definition of passion” to me! It’s great they are back! …and since members of the band are checking this: keep going!
I give this album 9.9/10. The only thing for me is that the songs on KoD aren’t easily distinguishable. But I love this album. It is the first new hardcore release I’ve got absolutely stoked for in years.
Growth in Passion is the best track on this album. That one, and the Healer, are probably in the top five Christian hardcore songs ever written IMO. Such solid, Christ-centered lyrics.
On a side note: 4 the luv of pete….. brandog, josh, whoeva is in charge of it, etc. Please update the “album release list”, lol.
agreed!!
Josh is in charge of the Album Release List and I haven’t heard from him in several weeks. I would like to make changes to it but all the emails get sent to josh for that list.
Amazing stuff, love it 2 :) 10 is fair mark, tnx fore review;)
This package arrived in the mail last week, I ordered it immediately on hearing the download, I loved it so much! I have never given an album a 10, probably never will, but Kingdoms is definitely 9 for me. I was so bummed when I heard the band had ended, and so excited when I heard of this project – but also hesitant for it to meet my expectations after Waking Giants. Life In Your Way’s music is so full of passion, & it’s just like the music I like to make myself. #1 anticipated project of 2011 for me.
Kingdoms did not disappoint me, it did the opposite. I burnt a disc with all tracks together, but sometimes I’ll spin an EP version. Growth In Passion is my favourite song from disc 1, The Healer my favourite from disc 3. Disc 2 all seems to run together, but it’s my favourite of the 3.
BTW it’s “Induction” not “Introduction”
Ah, right you are on the spelling :)
Is the packaging sweet? I’m still looking to buy it when I get the cash.
Yeah the packaging is pretty awesome. To be honest I mostly bought it because the packaging/art was so good. The music is obviously fantastic too, but I wouldn’t have bought the physical if the packaging wasn’t so good.
999/10
Love these guys, and being from CT makes them awesomer, and they’re really nice guys too, this release did not dissapoint in any way except on occasion when I would listen a million times a day and the songs would get stuck on repeat in my head, which is sorta a good thing. :P And yeah, the packaging is sweet, except the typo “Come&Live is a non profit organization dedicated to raising up a generation OR Jesus followers” LOL, but yes, it’s nice, everyone who gave money for the kickstarter is listed as a executive producer in it. tons of names. Gives a personal feel to it.