And so we come to the end of the All That Remains run.  After the disappointment of Overcome I tried one more time with For We Are Many, mainly because Adam Dutkiewicz returned to the producer’s chair.  The band curbs a bit of the active rock polish and brings the melodic death from earlier albums to the fore, making for a solid album the nevertheless failed to get me to return to the fold.

It starts off strong, through.  The 1-2 hit of intro “Now Let Them Tremble” and “…For We Are Many” has some of the heaviest riffs the band put out in years, nary a clean hook in sight, although the music compensates with some crushing breakdowns and melodic riff-work.  From there For We Are Many jumps right into the album’s strongest hit, “The Last Time” which follows “Two Weeks” in the way it crafts some stellar hooks in the pre-chorus and the chorus.  Despite the color and flash in the riffs, this is a mid-paced  stomp rocker, and I dig it, despite the spoken breakdown and “whoooaas” at the song’s end.

Elsewhere things get a little too samey, perhaps owing to the 12 songs clocking in at 41 minutes.  There are some really cutting moments, such as “Some of the People, All of the Time” and “Dead Wrong” – both of which are super heavy and really bring back the crush of something from This Darkened Heart.  But those bright spots are dimmed by tracks like “Hold On” with its pseudo rap and closer “The Waiting One” which aims for epic (more “whoooaaaas”) but instead feels a little too AOR for a closing track.

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I’ve tried a few cuts from later All That Remains records, but nothing has really stuck.  I know there’s a new record out that’s supposed to be a return to heavier form, and since Oil Herbert’s tragic passing I’m curious to hear it if for nothing else that to hear the man’s final musical output, but I think I have about what I needed from this band, and that’s enough.