After the glory days of early 2000s post-hardcore, the genre quickly fizzled out. Every once in a while some late stragglers to the now-dead scene would prove to be as good as any band were while the scene was alive, such as La Dispute and mewithoutYou. However, La Dispute fell off the radar quickly after a promising first album and mewithoutyou eventually abandoned their post-hardcore leanings. With Fake History in 2010, letlive. showed themselves to be the new post-hardcore act to look out for.

Influenced by the more ambitious and progressive post-hardcore acts such as Glassjaw and Refused, letlive. made one of the greatest post-hardcore albums ever that pushed the boundaries of the genre and defied traditional verse-chorus-verse pop song structures while still maintaining a strong pop sensibility with great hooks and star production. The only question was, after an album like that, where would letlive. go next? Would they repeat Fake History or top it?

Well, the answer is… neither. Right off the bat you’ll notice the most controversy aspect of The Blackest Beautiful: the production. My one complaint with Fake History is that it was over-produced. There was too much sheen, the vocals sounded too clean and it was as close to sounding like a pop album than any other post-hardcore I’ve heard. It stripped the album of the fierce energy that the band undeniably had. That was one of their greatest strengths, so hiding it behind sugary production was a big mistake. TBB‘s production is much, much more lo-fi and raw. I definitely prefer it and the band’s great riffs and catchy vocal melodies are still here in abundance.

If it weren’t for the production, this would be an even more accessible album than Fake History. TBB is significantly less progressive than its predecessor. The song structures are more simple and unconventional instrumentation isn’t used as often. The band still frequently breaks out of the verse-chorus-verse pattern mid-song and sometimes uses different instrumentation, which is good, but it’s in the vast minority when compared to Fake History. The Blackest Beautiful is clearly a deliberate attempt to strip down the band’s sound, and while they succeed at making a good competent album in the traditional post-hardcore sound, why did they settle for something less? Why should we settle for something else? Now they’re just another scream in the crowd. But at least they’re still one of the loudest.