If a picture says a thousand words, how many does the debut album from Sever your Ties scream? Listening to the album, you can hear potential and promise with every word. The vocals are clean, the guitar riffs are epic, and the drums crash in protectively. The mixture of all these elements are blended together evenly, providing classic rock ties eager to pump your fists with each hopeful break down, but there's something lacking. Everything in this album, from the screaming to the guitar melodies, screams safe. It's pretty and lyrical, but safe. It's clean and emotional, but safe. How can such a cleanly written Christian hardcore metal album be safe?

The album opens up with the song "Voice like a Nova". The beginning reels you in and smacks you with lyrics of "How long will you simples ones, live your simple ways/and fools hate knowledge, we should think before we say." The lyrics are very reminiscing of the Proverbs found in the Bible, many of which I had to write over and over again when I got into trouble growing up. The slide into "After a Storm" is very slick and creative. Most of the transitions on this album are. It's a great mixture of screaming and melodic singing, both very put together. "Hand and Hand", is possibly the best intro on this album. It makes you want to clap and stomp out to the beat. "I walk side by side with an angel/and I hold hands with the devil/and everything feels the same."

My two favorite tracks are "This is What You Get" and "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". Maybe I take interest in them because I like awesome break downs and raw emotional screaming, or maybe it's the powerful lyrics and the reliability to their honesty. "This is What You Get" is clear and draws you in. "You run into your room, shut the door and cry/but don't stay true to the feelings you hold inside/you have your vanity but you can't blame them/when you believe it's true and everything's a lie." Those kind of lyrics are some you write in your memory for the rest of your life. "(Don't Fear) the Reaper" is also a great lyrical song, but a cover. Sure, there's only one cover of a song on the album, but hopefully, it won't be a theme for albums to come, since it's the only song you find a little bit catchy and easy to remember.

Each song on the album, by itself, can be taken as an amazing piece of work, leaving you wanting more, but what about the whole album as a unit stand? It's a good album, don't get me wrong, but you won't remember it after the new Under0ath album "Lost in Sound and Separation" drops in September, both from Solid State Records (U0 is also joined with Tooth & Nail). How does it stand as a debut album? It's pretty good album. The guys in the band seem very passionate and driven, digging deeper than just another song meaning. My issue with it is every song seems to sound the same. I even had it on repeat and I didn't know when the album started replaying itself. It never sounded bad or says the "wrong" message, but it's on a "steak" demanding record label and it delivers a really good "hamburger".