AT ALL COST - It’s Time To Decide

AT ALL COST
It’s Time To Decide
Combat Records – 2005
8/10




You have to lend At All Cost a fair bit of credit for their determinedness to bring a bit of originality into their sound. There’s a lot of different things going on in this ensemble’s songwriting, from scathing core assaults to futuristic, technological overtones and even a bit of groove to make your booty move, think Cynic in a car crash with As I Lay Dying and you’re pretty much in the ballpark. But to be frank, this adventurous Texas group is so much more than that.

Plenty of tempo shifts keep this record attention-grabbing, with well-plotted arrangements emphasizing drama and musical creativity. Although there may be a few too many hardcore influences here for some metal peeps, At All Cost make it happen in a way that sounds vastly unlike any of their peers.

A prime example lies in the stark freshness of the techno-core leadoff track “Death To Distraction”, while it’s follow-up, “The Formula” embraces abrasiveness and trippy quirkiness in tandem. When you hear the abstract, synthesized, in-the-midst-of-torture wailing of frontman Andrew Collins on the punked-up anthem “Right Now”, you can’t walk away without feeling as if you’ve had one hell of a lashing.

A degree of accessibility seeps into the digits of “Fabricated” and this artistic diversity resonates as highly welcome. Mind you, this track is as close to as a ballad as you’re going to get from this group, it’s polished, mid-tempo aura beckoning the listener’s memory with a singular, cyber-presence. Yea, At All Cost can cover a lot of ground. And they do it in a markedly creative manner which reveals the outfit as being a candle and not a mirror.


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