Post Hardcore is a genre with which I am to especially make sure that my ears are open and objective, coming from a progressive and power metal background; the music is crafted in an entirely different light. With the French LODZ, I am not overwhelmed with an overuse of palm-muted chords, breakdowns and grating vocals. Instead, I am pleasantly surprised. The screams are strained and painful; though I must make the distinction between sounding painful, and being painful to listen to; they are full of emotion and power. The clean range from the dulcet and melancholic to the loud and yelled, and the guitar work and ambience used verges on the intelligent.

The first track, "Detachment", even contains some doom metal elements; in its entirety, it is utterly depressing, made so with masterful use of atmospherics and chord progressions, and wistful guitar melodies, and does not simply transition from clean vocal to breakdown; no part of the song sounds the same. Following on we have "Follow the Crowd", which does not follow any apparent stereotypes this album may set for some. It is closer to a hard, alternative rock track, and combines a little of the melancholy that is rife on the rest of this album, with rock reminiscent of BREAKING BENJAMIN. Upon listening to "Sulfur", I unfortunately found myself a little disappointed. At over 6 minutes long, unlike the opening track, it feels too predictable and through-and-through same-y and flavourless; at this point, the screams begin to feel a little annoying, as do the cleans, getting a little too close to a grating whine for my tastes.

The album is somewhat redeemed by the more toned down, "The Rope", which is dominated by a lengthy tremolo melody on the guitars, and overall feels much more intelligently composed, and an air of melancholy that sides much closer to a deeper form of depressive emotion, than trivial whining. Finally, a track over eight minutes is certainly not something I would expect on a post-Hardcore album, but that is what we have, in "Close to the Flames". The minute and a half of the song consists of a peaceful guitar melody that quickly descends into some heavy, Hardcore riffage, that is unfortunately dominated by unintelligible screams; something that was much preferable in the first half of the record, with the obvious exception of "Sulfur". Aside from that, the various calm, clean and otherwise heavy runs are instead smoothed over by more tolerable clean vocals. Speaking of which, this song in particularly is a cause for compliment, as it is exemplary of the original, creative and emotive lyric work found on the album.

While I tolerated and enjoyed the majority of the songs from this album, it was unfortunately brought down by a few weak pieces, weighed down by an inescapable annoyance brought on by certain use of coarse vocals, but that is of course, only my personal taste. Given that I know this is a much-loved genre among certain musical circles, I feel like LODZ would have, and deserve, a large and devoted fan base, given the chance.