Alexisonfire — Crisis

As figureheads of the screamo scene, it's easy to write off Alexisonfire as sort of what Limp Bizkit were to nu metal. Well, at least it was before they wrote Crisis. With their third album, they've simultaneously sprinted ahead of their imitators while keeping their core sound intact.

The band must have taken notes while touring with Johnny Truant and Cancer Bats, as Crisis sounds decidedly more ballsy than 2004's Watch Out!.

Fortunate osmosis aside, make no mistake: they're still Alexisonfire and they still rely on fusing melodies and screams over barbed riffs. Only now, instead of exchanging verses and choruses, George Pettit, Dallas Green and Wade MacNeil trade the mic seamlessly and let the songs flow naturally instead of sounding formulaic. Like Underoath, they've undergone a pivotal change that will separate them from the hordes of screamo clones.

Crisis is sure to please longtime fans of the band while silencing naysayers once and for all.

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