So about a week ago, All That Remains released their second single for their upcoming album A War You Cannot Win. Looking at the history of this band I've noticed that they have a habit of releasing both a heavy track and what I like to call a "token ballad" prior to releasing their full length album. Well, this is the ballad.
I'm going to approach this song from two different perspectives for this review. From the first perspective, If I were to hear this song on the radio then I would be pleased. Even though All That Remains has adopted a more "mainstream" sound I still find their music to be far superior to even the heaviest songs by bands such as Three Days Grace. "Stand Up" has a very catchy intro, decent lyrics, and solid guitar work, which is more than I can say about any Buttrock band. From the other perspective, that of a long time fan, this song really doesn't strike me as being anything special. I'm not going to compare this track to any of their heavier material since this was obviously not meant to be brutal, but instead, I will use their previous ballad type songs as a basis for comparison. Songs like "The Last Time" and "Two Weeks" were structured very well. Even though they were written in the basic "verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus" form, they both had incredibly catchy choruses and appropriate solos. "Stand Up" fell short on both aspects. Lyrically the chorus feels a little too poppy and the solo, although solid, doesn't fit well with the overall pace of the song. In conclusion, "Stand Up" is a decent song but it's nothing new or truly outstanding compared to All That Remain's previous material. A War You Cannot Win is expected to be released this November.
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