Since 2007, Breathe Carolina has been pumping out the bass-pounding, fast beat electronic rock that we know today. Their most recent edition, Hell Is What You Make Of It, certainly lives up to name they’ve made for themselves. Imagine hardcore screamo meets electropop meets electronica meets dance meets 80′s meets dubstep. Yes, that is all on one CD. By the same two people. No, I’m not lying.
I’ve been a fan of the band since Kyle Even and David Schmitt started rocking out in Denver, Colorado in 2007 with It’s Classy, Not Classic. The dance inspiration for this album was clearly evident in the beats that backed up the songs “Gossip”, “No Vacancy”, and “That’s Classy”. This inspiration was carried on throughout their next album, Hello Fascination. There are no other words to describe their second studio-recorded album other than epic. The beats got faster, the words more expressive, and the sound more hard-hitting. With a subtle injection of a slightly more hardcore attitude (as proven with “I.D.G.A.F.”) than their first album, if you hadn’t heard about Breathe Carolina after It’s Classy, Not Classic, you certainly knew about them post Hello Fascination.
Hell Is What You Make Of It, however, is a little different from the first two. While the vocals are exactly the same, the beat and the music style are switched up. The first song on the album is called “Rebirth: An Introduction” which has minimal singing and an intro beat that gets you pumped up enough to go right into the second song, “Wooly”. It’s the smoothest transition between two separate pieces of music that I’ve ever head in my life. The drums kick off the beginning of the song, and following typical Breathe Carolina style, transitions into electropop. What makes this song intriguing is the fact that the two alternate between singing the lyrics and screaming them at regular intervals. This keeps you interested, but it’s not my favorite on the album. It comes off as too modern-hardcore mediocre for me.
The next song, “Blackout”, definitely is more reminiscent of traditional Breathe Carolina. It was a major comfort to realize this after the first song was so different, but something was still unusual about the song. That was when I realized that there were more backup vocals. The harmony in the background of the song really makes it that much better, and I gave “Blackout” an A+ for originality, combined with the use of electronic vocal manipulations. Genius.
“Edge of Heaven” and “Last Night (Vegas)” was two of the slower songs on the album. While they both have lyrics about two completely different things, I tend to lean more towards “Edge of Heaven” as a better overall song, but “Last Night” had a much more unique musical quality with the steady bass beat in the background, almost tropical sounding. Even though it was one of your basic “I-can’t-remember-what-I-did-last-night” songs…and I think there are enough of them playing on the radio. But still, I was satisfied with the album up until this point because although the song was general, Breathe Carolina still put their own spin on it.
“Sweat It Out” was one of my favorites on the entire album. I played this and “Waiting” over and over, just because it was literally music to my ears. I mean any song that starts out with a repetition of “rumblin’, rumblin’, rumblin,”, dives directly into a screamed-out verse, then alternates between that, singing, and then goes directly into the chorus and is combined with an intense dance soundtrack is just straight up intense. There are four different vocal combinations that I could count in this song, and who could ask for more? The whole thing just flowed, lyrics and all, and ended with an electropop/underwater-sound. “Waiting”, on the other hand, was a favorite because of the lyrics and how the band was (again) able to combine pitches in vocals. It’s just one of those songs that get stuck in your head with a catchy techno beat.
There were two more fairly slowed-down songs on the album, “Gone So Long”, for one, which was nice to listen to the first few times. Then I got tired of it. The one thing that really stood out to me was the chorus; the vocals (just like almost all the songs on the CD) had higher pitches at some points and were another song that was nicely put together, for being a more serious song. “Lauren’s Song” was possibly the slowest-starting song on the CD, and I was not a fan of this one. The chorus sped up and there were bursts of screaming vocals, but it came off as another mainstream hardcore ballad, until you listen to the lyrics-clearly there was a serious meaning behind them. The first verse reads “every shooting star reminds me when Hollywood lost the brightest,” and it is a powerful–sad–song. Whoever Lauren is remains a mystery, but it’s a touching dedication. The lyrics are emotion-packed, and with lines like “and I hope heaven needs you more than I do now”, they definitely stay with you. But if you’re looking for the raw, in your face music that Breathe Carolina is known for, these songs were not them.
“They Say You Won’t Come Back” can’t be described as anything else but 80′s inspired. That’s the first thing I thought of once the subtle buildup eventually lead into the chorus. Its modern-day lyrics meet updated 80′s music. I felt like I was thrown into some kind of retro-electro-rock era. Completely intriguing.
“Get Off Easy” was probably another one of my favorites, only because of the lyrics. It’s typical Breathe Carolina, but the interesting thing is that the song starts off with what sounds like a news reporter relaying a message about a crime scene. With a chorus that goes “I should have killed you when I had the chance”, who wouldn’t listen to this song? I liked it.
Out of the three songs left on the album, “Take It Back” and “Chemicals” were the best ones. “Take It Back” was a little bit more chilled out, a little more pop-sounding. Not many changes in vocals, but it’s an OK song. “Chemicals” wasn’t bad either, and what I really love about this song is how after the low/high alternating pitches in vocals, they introduced dubstep. As in slowed-down, heavy bass, opposite of electropop, music. And I thought it was brilliant and completely unexpected in the song, and actually worked. I’m not sure what Kyle Even and David Schmitt were thinking when they were experimenting with this new album, but whatever it was, it came out as an all-together pretty ridiculous combination of sounds and vocals. While it’s clearly classy not classic, I’d call the whole CD a success.
Top Tracks: Sweat It Out, Waiting, Get Off Easy
Rating: 
Lianna Tedesco, Contributor
Related posts:
Friend Us!