When These Hearts released ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ in 2011, it was very clear that this was a band with great potential. The clean vocals felt like they could do with a little work, the album had enough about it to suggest that this band could potentially grow into something rather special in the future, however, and with ‘Yours To Take’ the band continues to grow and to find itself.
With the album’s opening track ‘This Is Love’, These Hearts combines with Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!’s Bert Poncet and right from the word go here you can immediately tell that this is a band that has worked on tightening its sound. Instrumentally the band always had a huge amount to offer; the drumming was incredibly consistent throughout the entirety of the ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ album and there was also some extremely impressive guitar work, with studio album number two the clean vocals also sound a lot stronger though with Ryan Saunders really upping his game here. The vocals feel a lot more natural, less nasal, less high pitched, and more under control, too.
Signed to Victory Records and with a similar musical format of providing a pop-punk/hardcore crossover, These Hearts is a band that will at times inevitably be compared to A Day to Remember, and when listening to the band’s ‘Been Through Hell’ in particular it’s really very hard not to think of their Floridian labelmates. ‘Been Through Hell’ sounds a lot like ‘The Downfall of Us All’ in places, it’s a very catchy track and a piece of music that most certainly has much replay value, it definitely feels like it’s been done before though, and although it’s a lot of fun it definitely doesn’t feel particularly high in originality. Whilst the band’s originality may be questioned, however, one positive quality that you can definitely draw from this release is the band’s ability to pen an incredibly catchy pop song. ‘Thinking In Terms of Two’ from ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ was a track that hinted at the band’s supreme pop sensibilities, and this is something that is further showcased here with tracks such as ‘Birds Of A Feather’ and ‘Undecided Story’, the latter of which has an opening every bit as big as any single that 30 Seconds to Mars has ever released. As the band continues to develop in the future, turning to a more purely pop/pop-punk based sound is definitely something for These Hearts to think about, and given their artistic ability to produce tracks as infectious as these it’s definitely something to be given some serious thought.
Whilst becoming more purely pop based may be something to consider for These Hearts, another direction for this band to take in the future may be to delve deeper into the heavier side of their sound; featuring For Today’s Mattie Montgomery, ‘War’ is a very impressive track that heads very much down the metalcore route, a sound that seems to suit the band supremely. The band definitely shows on this album that they can do both pop-punk and hardcore very impressively, switching back and forth between the two styles within the same tracks however does at times leave the music open to feeling a little too predictable and contrived.
‘Yours To Take’ comes to a bouncy conclusion with final track ‘Never Mind Me’, providing further hope for the future of These Hearts. ‘Never Mind Me’ is an acoustically charged pop-punk track that brings the album to an impressive end. The track sounds very big, doesn’t ever descend into hardcore (even though you’re always half expecting it to), and it just really rounds the album off nicely with one final moment of promise. It’s this kind of a track that the band seems to do best, so it’s therefore nice to hear the band closing the album out in this style, leaving the listener optimistic that there may well be more of this to come in the future.
With their Victory Records debut These Hearts displayed in places great potential for the future, and with their sophomore release they definitely seem to have worked on suring up their sound and improving as a unit. They’ve shown here that they’re able to do both the pop-punk and the hardcore sound proud, for me it’s the band’s prowess in the pop-punk department that shines through most strongly, however, and if they were to focus purely on this side of their music with studio album number three then there’s every chance that it could end up becoming a real classic of the genre.
Rating
[Rating:3/5]
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
