Spun: Parkway Drive

By Derek Neumeier

Get ready to start kicking your legs and swinging your arms violently. Australia’s most explosive export, metalcore band Parkway Drive, is back with a new disc full of tracks for you to enter a pit and throw down to.

With Horizons, their sophomore stab at an album release, the boys from Byron Bay take all that was right from their 2005 breakout full-length Killing With A Smile and crank it up to 11. The band returns with more of their signature breakdowns, which are mesmerizing and vary from complete instrumental dead-stops to shred-tastic double bass/heavy-riff combos and everything in between. Frontman Winston McCall’s screams and growls are smoother than ever, intensified by an expanded vocal range that is most noticeable on the tracks “Boneyards” and “Five Months.” The guitar work has also undergone impressive progression with more and faster solos, most notably in the intro to the track “Breaking Point.”

The only real downer about the CD is the lyrics McCall gutturally spews out aren’t worthy of a grade seven poetry assignment. Metal and hardcore bands aren’t exactly known for having profound lyrics, but none of the twelve tracks on Horizons has anything especially interesting to say and that hurts the message and meaning behind each song. Still, if you’re looking for something intense yet oh-so-intricately assembled to assault the senses and scare the neighbours, Parkway Drive’s newest release is right up your alley.