Finnish band AS I MAY released their third album "Karu" and started it off with a bang. I had high hopes for this album when I heard the first two songs "Charged" and "Breaking Myself Away." The first one has a brilliant opening riff. I was into how heavy it sounded right off the bat and it seemed like it was going to be a decent metalcore/melodic metal album.

The song "Rotten" opens with a heavy riff and wicked screaming vocals. It has all the makings of a catchy chorus, but it just doesn't do it for me. Something about their sound just got very commercialized at this point, however. And things really seemed to take a different direction once the next song came on. Am I hearing things or did I just hear this band reference BRITNEY SPEARS in the song "High Octane?" I'm pretty sure they just used the lyrics "Meltdown like Britney Spears." I find this to be a really weird lyric for a metal band. It seems like more of an EMINEM move for sure. While it does provide a good visual of how bad the meltdown is, I'm not a fan of the lyrics personally.

I love the heaviness of the music and I love the screams and the heavy vocals. But I had a lot of mixed feelings about the clean vocals on this album. There were times where I could dig it and times I wished they weren't there. And sometimes that happened in the same song. I also feel like maybe this band isn't sure what type of music they want to make. The music is pretty heavy, but there were moments it felt very radio rock and sometimes I got nu-metal vibes. It was kind of all over the place honestly. After the first two songs it definitely felt like they were going for a more mainstream rock vibe. They even started using the clean singing a lot more than screams. Some of the lyric writing seemed a little cheesy and cliche at times. "Devil Rides With Me" is a perfect example of this.

The last song "Choke Me" also has a catchy chorus like what is heard in "Rotten." The album seemed to get softer and more radio-friendly toward the end, which disappointed me from the first two songs, because I thought it was going to be pretty heavy. There are still screams scattered throughout, but they're definitely more subdued compared to the metalcore-style screams presented in the first two songs. There's nothing wrong with wanting to do mainstream rock, I just wish they'd chosen to make the album more consistent.