the record that makes my emmure collection complete. it's emmure's fourth album from 2011 called 'speaker of the dead'. it's the record after 'felony', wich is despite one completely failed song my favourite album of n.y.'s most controversial band, and that's why 'speaker of the dead' was always a tough act to follow. i usually believe that it's healthy for a record to not cross the ten songs limit (intros and such not included).
mostly albums above that limit tend to get exhausting because it's hard to keep attention high, funnily this seems to be regardless of duration. anyway, 'speaker of the dead' has fifteen songs and some feel like fillers. the band had so many good ideas on that record but seemed to have written for every good single riff one song instead of channeling the best ideas into a more compact song-writing.
nevertheless there are some real good shots on this album. check out 'demons with ryu' and the haunting 'bohemian groove'. emmure's singer frank palmeri is obviously keen on the video game street fighters. i know this game too because i spend a lot of time with it on my grey kerbstone called game boy twenty years ago. so the colour description for this green version made me chuckle. blanka green out of 400 copies. victory records. 2011/2013.