ALBUM REVIEW: The Cycles Of Trying To Cope – Like Moths To Flames

LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES are re-defining themselves on their sixth album The Cycles Of Trying To Cope. The band were already one of the defining metalcore bands throughout the 2010s, playing on Warped Tour in 2013 and releasing five EPs and five albums since their formation in 2010, but The Cycles Of Trying To Cope seeks to do something different. Its 11 songs are separated into four chapters – Limbo, Fracture, Dissociate and Melancholia – and together they make up a great album for both newcomers and longtime fans of the band.

Opener Angels Weep shows that the band are not playing around. They blend metal vocals with electronic rock instruments and make it look easy, and whilst there is some clean singing, most of the track sees vocalist Chris Roetter employing a vicious scream. Paradigm Trigger follows a similar structure to that of the opener – with the addition of a few gang vocals – and it isn’t until fourth track Gone Without A Trace that the album flips into new territory. Focusing on more of a gritty rock sound with a lot more singing, the band are smart enough to build up to this change in previous songs, which pays off as it then doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Whilst it does unfortunately drag a little towards the end of its four-minute runtime, the rest of the song is fantastic.

It also leads into a new part of the album which expertly mixes singing and screaming. Dissociative Being has heavy elements of synths, whereas The Shepherd’s Crown is a short and vicious metalcore song that doesn’t sound out of place because of the similarly harsh elements that run throughout the previous songs.

The Cycles Of Trying To Cope is not a perfect album by any means though. To Know Is To Die is a paint-by-numbers metalcore song that doesn’t really make an impact and just sounds quite rushed, while the production waters down the vocals on Kintsugi, making them hard to hear over the instruments. This is a shame because the lyrics come across as extremely raw and vulnerable where you can hear them.

Fortunately, the instruments are fantastic throughout, whether it is the fantastic guitar work on Everything That Once Held It Together, the brilliant drumming on The Depths I Roam, or both on the aforementioned Gone Without A Trace. The pacing is coherent too, as is the album’s sonic identity as the band have chosen to blend two different genres together without ever favouring one over the other.

Overall, The Cycles Of Trying To Cope is cohesive, fun to listen to, and accessible to new fans. Whilst it isn’t perfect, as some of the songs in the middle suffer from production issues, the rest of the album is a masterclass in how to balance two genres at once. By scattering elements of electronica throughout the first three songs, for example, it does not feel out of place for the fourth song to have a heavy electronic metal sound. By doing this throughout the album, the band make sure that the genre changes do not sound sudden. The instruments and vocals throughout are fantastic, and the pacing is – mostly – cohesive, and all told this makes for a brilliant addition to the band’s discography.

Rating: 8/10

The Cycles Of Trying To Cope is set for release on May 10th via UNFD.

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