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Week's Worst: Escape the Fate

By Chris Parker

Add Comment | Comments: 2 | Posted Feb. 9, 2011

Escape the Fate were never very good, but their Geffen debut’s an epic Cleveland Steamer. The Las Vegas quartet’s first two albums for Epitaph suggested a middling punk-pop act whose screamo tendencies had all but disappeared by 2008’s This War Is Ours. It charted, and after a major label makeover they emerged as metal’s answer to Alkaline Trio, complete with eerie horror movie synths and rotting lyrical matter. The bellowing and breakdowns return, abetted by a schizophrenic grab bag of stylistic hard rock tics recalling at different times My Life in the Thrill Kill Kult, Mötley Crüe and Dream Theatre. You couldn’t produce a more pretentious, cheese-laden load of crap if you dipped Billy Corgan in Velveeta. Where do brooding, eyeliner-sporting youth go when Twilight fades? My guess is the grocery checkout lane next to former members of Coal Chamber and Stabbing Westward. What happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas.

Wed. Feb. 9, 8pm. $15-$17. With Alesana, Motionless in White, Get Scared + Drive A. Crocodile Rock Cafe. 520 W. Hamilton St., Allentown. 610.434.4600. crocodilerockcafe.com