Flyleaf
Memento Mori
Release Date: Nov 10, 2009
Genre(s): Rock, Metal
Record label: A&M/Octone
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Album Review: Memento Mori by Flyleaf
Very Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating B
Texas fivesome Flyleaf achieved surprise platinum status with their slow-build 2005 debut — a success due equally, no doubt, to their brooding alt-metal aggression and Christian subtext. On Memento Mori, Frontwoman Lacey Mosley couches her searching wails in couplets that expertly walk the line between secular and God-centered. Her passionate devotionals make for galvanizing, if eventually exhausting, listening.
Based on rating 7/10
Texas-based Christian rock/emo-metal quintet Flyleaf’s sophomore release jettisons the raw, punk-infused angst of its platinum-selling debut, replacing it with a thick, punchy theatricality that is as progressive as it is radio-ready. Fueled by the electrifying voice of Lacey Mosley, who can build a city with a single soaring note and then tear it down with a lone caterwaul, Memento Mori (musically, at least) owes more to the tech-heavy, similarly faith-based King's X than it does the moody atmospherics of Evanescence, but there’s enough angst and obsession here to draw fans of the latter. At 14 songs, most of which bust out the gate with guns blazing, it can be hard to differentiate, especially when the group sticks to the formula of heavy riff/verse/heavy riff/chorus, but between the moody single "Again" and the alternately laid-back and elegiac closer "Arise," the five members of Flyleaf have come awfully close to finding and defining their voice.
Opinion: Very Good
Juelz Santana & YelaWolf In 1986 Bob Dylan collaborated with Kurtis Blow on “Street Rock,” undoubtedly sending both hip-hop fans and Dylanologists lunging for the fast-forward button. Both parties will be relieved to know that Mr. Dylan has not collaborated with Juelz Santana on “Mixing Up the Medicine,” his virtuoso new single produced by Kane Beatz.