My first thought after listening to Keeper of Souls was that it was what the last band I reviewed, After the Fall, would probably try to shoot for with unlimited recording time. The production on the album is absolutely stellar and very showy, happening on the level of a Pink Floyd, Linkin Park, or A Perfect Circle album, and utilizing every bit of studio-magic and recording technology whiz-bang that you can think of. The heavy production makes me wonder exactly how much of this CD’s sound the band could replicate live.
The overall image and premise of the CD might suggest a metal act to listeners unfamiliar with A Symbiont. However, the band, while clearly carrying some nu-metal influences, has a myriad of punk, pop-punk, and emo trademarks, especially in the vocals. The vocalist displays a lot passion and a lot of range, reminding the listener of such notables as Trent Reznor, Jared Leto, Brandon Boyd, Jonathan Davis, and Chester Bennington at various points on the CD. On “Paper Airplanes,” he belts out massive hook notes, on “Lucky You” he screams quite a bit, on “Beyond the Peripheral,” he is tender and emotionally precise. However, little virtuosity is displayed outside of the vocals. There are some exciting, driving guitar riffs but there are absolutely no solos of any kind until a bass solo in the final song, “Escape Pod.”
The incredible amount of production trickery helps to ensure the album is vibrant with variety and originality. However, the intellectual content of the album is unspectacular. Not only is the instrumental virtuosity lacking as just described, but the lyrics are also, to a great deal, derivative. At many points, the lyrics seem to be speaking directly to the audience in clichés of inspiration. Some may like that sort of thing, but I do not. I find it patronizing. The apex of this is reached in the closing track, where the band starts sounding like Switchfoot and the track ends with repeated “goodbyes” and “I swear I’ll come back for you.”
One risk of the great liberties taken in the recording of this album that I’m sure the band was aware of is the risk of making not just the interludes, but the main songs feel like artificially-constructed mash-ups. While “Paper Airplanes,” “Beyond the Peripheral,” “Makeshift Life,” “Lucky You,” and “Escape Pod” sound like cohesive numbers that were written before recording, others like “The Fade,” Showdown in Tokyo,” and “Anemone,” sound like the product of spare time on the recording console, songs that were going to be ditched until, after a great deal of technological tinkering, they were rehabilitated onto the album.
Overall, Keeper of Souls has a wide range of appeal. Starbucks-sipping yuppie types will like its production tricks, mainstream emo fans should love it, pop-punk fans and some metal fans I think would like it too. On the whole, I recommend the CD because of its great production and visceral liveliness. However, I don’t feel it reaches greatness because it lacks instrumental virtuosity and philosophical depth.
RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5 STARS
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