Note: I use a lot of colloquies and terminology that is familiar to people who listen to this kind of music, but for those who don’t, you may find a lot of what I say confusing. I do encourage you to explore this scene and some of the terms I use if you are unfamiliar with anything I say.

When one of my favorite artists, A Day to Remember, released their last record, Bad Vibrations, it was exciting news right? A Day to Remember (also one of the biggest bands in the scene of music I subscribe to) has a new album, let’s jam!

It’s odd that I get so excited about ADTR at all though, as I used to enthusiastically hate them. I thought they were everything I thought would ruin heavy music. Fusing it with poppy melodies, bright colors on their artwork, fangirls right and left…I even left a show of theirs early once (I went just so I could see Underoath). However when the band released their album What Separates Me from You I realized the futility of my feelings, opened up to the band, and they grew to become one of my favorites.

The thing that makes A Day to Remember somewhat remarkable though is that they aren’t the most technically savvy band all around. Their guitar riffs aren’t difficult, they aren’t trying crazy syncopated polyrhythms for their breakdowns, they just simply knew how to feel a song. They also always edged the line of being a pop-punk band, and a truly heavy band. They were just as easy to sing along with as they were to mosh too. While that idea wasn’t unique in and of itself, ADTR is seen as the band who more or less perfected this blend of the genres.

But they didn’t ever force that sound, it always seemed so natural. If a song was heavy, it wasn’t just heavy in tuning and constant chug patterns. It was angry. And they wouldn’t be afraid to kick in a sing-along chorus, or a punk beat if felt right. If a song was poppy, they embraced it and attempted to make it as emotional and relatable as possible. But occasionally, that would build to a place where maybe they would unleash something heavy, and they would do this in context if it felt right in the song.

However, with this new record Bad Vibrations (and to an extent, their previous album Common Courtesy) I’ve realized this blend felt different and more polarizing. They presented songs as “here is this heavy one” and “here is the poppy one.” While the record that got me into the group (What Separates Me from You) was criticized for this exact complaint, I feel that album presented the most refined collection of songs for the band. However, I don’t think Bad Vibrations does the same. And there’s a number of reasons:

First thing’s first: building breakdowns. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the best breakdowns don’t come from the bands with the lowest tuned guitars or who play open note patterns the most. Effective breakdowns are about the build to them. Essentially, you have to understand what a breakdown is, and how to harness it. Breakdowns inherently are a moment in a song where the momentum is taken away, everything simplifies and the song “breaks down” around what you’re doing.

In metalcore, you can have your hardcore/metal riffs driving the song, then interrupt that driving force with a “breakdown.” From a technical standpoint, the most utilized way you see this is by utilizing a half-time cut. That is, if your main song portions are at 180 bpm, you insert a breakdown to feel like the song drops to 90 bpm. This is the feeling you get during breakdowns of you wanting to bang your head, and also why bands are fond of using bass drops as the breakdown kicks in to emphasize that feeling of dropping the tempo.

A Day to Remember used to be a band that knew exactly how to build a breakdown. Take into account my favorite heavy song from them, “Mr. Highway’s Thinking About the End.” The song opens with a dissonant chord being arpeggiated on a guitar. The drums and other instruments then cut in, using a typically building pattern to show that they are about to erupt into something. The build happens, then cuts out to Jeremey shouting, “Wake up!” and a half-time cut kicks in. The breakdown is slow and methodical but sounds massive and devastating. Once it’s over, however, the band quickly regains the tempo and has a driving riff to push into the first verse. Toward the middle of the song the chorus cuts out, you hear a handful of cymbal crashes in the background, one guitar then comes in, then the drums kick in to do a building beat. It sounds almost like the opening of the song. The moment builds on the guitar/bass/drums and just like the song’s opening part, right as the build reaches its climax it stops. Jeremey quickly shouts, “Disrespect your surroundings!” and a breakdown immediately kicks in. There is a bass drop which provides the backdrop for a halftime cut, and the band uses a quick polyrhythm over that which keeps the “build” happening before the true half-time cut kicks in. It does, with Jeremy seemingly panting, “You won’t make it out alive,” before the quicker rhythm kicks back in. They build you up and tear you down again. And it’s done euphorically.

In this breakdown, it isn’t the drop of the tempo that sounds heavy, but rather the tease of the drop and its unrelenting drive that causes it to sound so violent. They have set you up to think you know what it’s going to sound like, and they then use that to their advantage to get the listener to feel like their in utter chaos.

Then, the breakdown ends. We hear the main chord notes from the chorus again, and Jeremy comes back softly singing the chorus. The song never picks up, and softly lets the listener recover from the destruction of the breakdown as the chorus fades away and the track ultimately ends. Not only was the breakdown well built, it has ramifications for the rest of the song. There is what I call “payoff” from the breakdown. It doesn’t just happen to have a heavy moment, the band had a tactical plan on how they wanted to accomplish a feeling, and built the song around it. It’s tasteful and complicated in terms of songwriting, even if the actual instrumental parts aren’t.

Now let’s look at the title song from Bad Vibrations. It tries to capture a lot of what “Mr. Highway” does well, but is nowhere as effective. The song opens with another build, but this time it’s vocal. Jeremey shouts, “Don’t forget that this a choice/pick your poison live with remorse,” twice, then a breakdown kicks in. It’s a halftime cut, but features a more complicated rhythm than anything we see on “Mr. Highway”, it still has a riff progression to it, and then they add a lead part underneath it which for me, colludes the soundscape they’re going after. This breakdown isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just not as well-executed as the opening to “Mr. Highway.” However, it’s the main breakdown in the “bridge” of the song that lacks the payoff. There is again a build musically, and Jeremey is saying, “Toxic,” quietly, then louder and louder until he shouts it and the drop happens.

However, the drop doesn’t quite drop. There isn’t that allusion to what happened earlier, and this breakdown rhythmically feels like the build. It’s not its own entity. There are dissonant chords being played between the breakdown’s rhythm and again, the soundscape is compromised for it. Then as it ends, the chorus comes back in full throttle, as if nothing happened. Rather than being floored and realizing this song is built around this breakdown and seeing the rest of the song is impacted by it, it’s like the breakdown was there, and just kind of glossed over. You miss that “payoff.”

When you’re a heavy band, the worst mistake you can do is to be heavy just to be heavy. You can’t just drop-tune a guitar, play open chord chug patterns, and call it good. You need to be angry. While that seems superficial, being heavy isn’t about the style, tunings, or how much you scream. It’s about the emotion conveyed, that’s what draws you in.