Album Review: Emery – Eve

Emery’s second, successfully crowdfunded album, Eve is set to drop November 9th. Its album artwork has already stirred up controversy among fans. The content of the 15-track album delivers powerful content in an emotional and well-written and executed format. If you’re still looking for the Emery of The Weak’s End or The Question, you’ll only find traces of them. Eve demonstrates Emery’s continual growth as a group. They still sound like Emery, but they’re the Emery of 2018; this album is clearly a continuation of the recent work that the group did in You Were Never Alone.

Genre: Rock
Label: Bad Christian Music
Release: November 9, 2018
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Purchase: Bandcamp | iTunes | Google Play

Instrumentation/Composition/ Flow

Relying on their original instrumentation, nothing about this album sounds drastically different from Emery’s past work. They’ve stuck to the script, but the script is well written and beautifully directed. The composition of the songs on the album is skillful and together, they form a cohesive body of work.The album features some experimentation in the forms of an instrumental track (“Flesh”) andsongs that continue over multiple tracks (“Fear Yourself” & “Jesus Wept”). While Eve may not entirely be a concept album, it’s got a concept.

Longevity/Originality/Production

Written using differing perspectives, Eve is a lyrically intense album that wrestles with doubt and belief, God and religion, and the concepts of Heaven and Hell. Emery has never been afraid to talk about these topics, and they do so in Eve using emotional and poetic language. These lyrics paired with music that plays with the limits of musical styles and tone, create an album that is both fun and interesting to listen to.

For a crowd-funded album, Emery has done it right. The production level is great, with individual instruments coming through clear and leveled. The freedom that Emery had to produce the album on their own label, BadChristian Music, is clear and that freedom looks good on them.

Musicality/Composition/Vocals

Eve is quintessentially Emery. It’s full of the shifting dynamics and melodic guitar leads that fans have come to expect. That certainly doesn’t mean that the album is passé though; on the contrary, listeners never have to worry about two Emery songs sounding the same. Eve further demonstrates that they’ve kept their compositions fresh and contemporary.

Another element that Emery never seems to struggle with is their use of harmony or even polyphony. With Devin Shelton’s return, so do the dual vocals, which gives the album additional depth. This album doesn’t feature as much screaming as We Do What We Want, but it’s still an important part to many of the songs.

Overall, Eve leaves the listener feeling hopeful. Hopeful for the future of Emery, but also for the listener. Eve doesn’t tell the listener what to think or believe, but it does reveal what Emery believes – which seems to be in hope.