The epitome of 2010s Steel City metal, You Are We will climb into your head and make itself at home. Full of rage and angst, this album is the soundtrack for modern youth’s opposition to the world right now.
Beginning like some electro pop tune, the title track leaves you wondering if you’re listening to the right song, but quickly reminds you that You Are We. Chaotic and fast-paced, “You Are We” introduces us to the riff-filled war this album wages. It begins to make you wonder who you really are, who are we? With cries of “We’ve got nothing to lose!”, you begin to question yourself and where you stand. This record is our voice replying to the hypocrites that “run” the world. Our musical revolution.
Bearing some resemblance to fellow metalcore bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Of Mice And Men, but with their own spin on the genre. While She Sleeps are shouting, and seems to ask for you to add your voice to theirs. Self-produced and self-promoted, the band are making themselves a new beginning and using their gift of being a well-known band to fight. But this is battle that won’t be fought alone. While She Sleeps have given us a voice, now we need to use it and our collective strength to set things right. We live in an “Empire Of Silence”, but can we make “Silence Speak Volumes”?
The lyrics to this track are describing what’s right in front of us, but we can’t see or choose to ignore. “Silence Speaks Volumes” The phrase that hits you in the middle of the track, yelled out by Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon, another of Sheffield’s metal bands. But what does this phrase mean? That we should do nothing? Or that we shouldn’t reply when they ask us a question? Each of us will interpret it differently, but we all know that it itsn’t nothing. While She Sleeps proclaim that “Hate is the new anthem”, so maybe we just need to stop singing that anthem and silence the ire of our world.
“Tear the borders, break the walls” — now the band is calling on everyone from everywhere to break out of our cages and form a single army to fight this hate. We are all bickering amongst ourselves, letting Them make the world a darker place. If we would just shut up and listen to the wake-up call, maybe we can all belong and sort this all out.
Last year, I said that Asking Alexandria‘s The Black was an anthem for this generation; but with everything that happened in 2016 — Brexit, Trump, etc — this is the anthem we all need. This is more than an album, each track is a call to struggle and a wake-up call to humanity to unite against everything bad. Not to form groups or parties, but to unite. We can’t just wallow in our loss any more; we must snap out of it, even if the tears are still sreaming down our face, and this is the soundtrack we will march to. And not just some of us, but all of us, because You Are We.
-Frankie Harmonia-
