Australian metalcore group Parkway Drive put out their fourth studio album titled “Ire” through Epitaph Records on Sept. 25. This is the first album where they have seriously changed their sound, and I honestly really like how it turned out. Since their first release “Killing with a Smile” in 2006, they have been recognized in the metalcore scene as the heaviest and most unrelenting band to date. They took a daring move on “Ire” to take a hard rock approach to their usual metal style. Instead of their usual motif of a breakdown or two in each song, they focused more on vocal delivery and riffage than on the overall heaviness of the album.

If you’re new to the metal scene, you might enjoy the track “Vice Grip.” It’s the most radio-friendly song on the album, but still retains a decent metal sound. If you are a returning fan that favors the Parkway Drive brutality, “Dying to Believe,” “Dedicated” and “The Sound of Violence” are the songs closest to their previous material. My personal favorite off “Ire” is “Crushed.” It perfectly blends Parkway’s previous heaviness with their new hard rock style into a mindblowing aural assault with excellent lyrics.

While there are moments on the album that are relatively bland and generic, I feel like that the positive points of the album overshadow the mistakes rather well. One or two songs tend to sound like they are reskinned versions of each other. The song “Writings on the Wall” seems to be just a filler song to meet a time requirement. There is nothing really special about it; it’s essentially a more depressing, pessimistic version of “Vice Grip.” Overall I think that Parkway Drive put out another solid album despite the filler song and the reskinned songs.