Breathe Carolina-Hello Fascination

I think that this is my first review on a band that isn’t metal. I’ve only been listening to Breathe Carolina for about a couple of months. At first, I wasn’t particularly fond of their music, but I have actually grown to greatly appreciate them. I think I started liking them more when I saw them live with Attack Attack!, Asking Alexandria, I See Stars, and Bury Tomorrow. I was mainly at that concert to see Alexandria and Attack. But I decided since I have some of Carolina’s music that I would stick around in the crowd and watch them. Since then, I have listened to them quite a bit more, and decided to buy this album at the concert, since I already had their first album.

In my opinion, Breathe Carolina is one of the more creative and experimental crunkcore bands. And this album is one of the more experimental albums out of their three releases (two full lengths and one EP). I think part of the reason is that this album is under Fearless Records. I have noticed that most of the Fearless albums out there are more experimental and unique. I think that Fearless Records encourages bands to be more elaborate and unique with their writing and musical styles. Every song on Hello Fascination sounds almost completely different from all the other songs, which is a trait that I always look for. One thing that I like about crunkcore is that the speeds of the songs differ. Unlike techno, where I noticed most or a lot of the songs are the same general speed. The inhale screams are pretty good, I would usually say that they could use to be a bit higher, but I think that the pitch that the screams are really fit the music. The singing is also really in tune, and the singer has a very pretty voice. But I’ll say again, autotune bothers me because I like a smooth transition between notes.

The title song is a great song to dance to. I love how it has the electric guitar sound, and has a really mystical sound in between the choruses. And during the choruses, the mood of the song changes into a really upbeat, gleeful sound that gives it a great twist. I.D.G.A.F. is probably the most techno sounding song on this album. Mainly because of the fuzzy keyboard sounds and the synthesized vocals. Tripped and Fell in Portland is probably the “heaviest” song and is the closest to real traditional crunkcore. In the beginning of the song, the music sounds almost like a screamo breakdown. Most of the song is distorted guitars, which really surprised me whenever I listen to the album straight through. Rescue is one of the songs that I don’t like. The song is very repetitive and the keyboard riffs are uninteresting and boring; some of them are even kind of annoying. So this album has its ups and downs. Overall I like the album quite a bit. I would recommend at least giving this album a try. I would score this album 16/20.