Change is a scary thing. It’s never a true guarantee that things will get better if you do something different. When it comes to music, that holds especially true. There’s rarely a happy medium for bands that change up their sound. It’ll either go over great or crash and burn. Most of the time, it’ll do both for the rabid fan bases that they work so hard to build.
This brings the topic to Sworn In. Coming off a red hot debut with The Death Card, it was a persistent question in everyone’s mind wondering where the band would go with the highly anticipated follow up record. “Sunshine” (Which you can stream here) was a small change from the sounds we heard on The Death Card, mixing in a Slipknot-esque nu metal sound (You can read The New Fury review here for the full rundown.) That was a great song, but it was nothing compared to what the metalcore quintet just unleashed.
The second single is named “I Don’t Really Love You” and has one hell of a different sound to it than you’d expect from Sworn In. Starting off eerily calm and soothing, the melody picks up the power and goes straight into the chorus. Filled with clean vocals, this chorus is reminiscent of “Mindless,” except more relaxed and not as aggressive sounding. However that doesn’t last long, as the spoken words “Just my luck, spit in my face because I gave a fuck” are quickly followed by the piercing exclamation “LOVE IS DEAD!” and continues throughout the verse with that trademark Sworn In hateful brutality. An immensely different approach than the aforementioned “Mindless,” yet it works so much better here. The instrumentation is definitely more varied and complex with this track, and that’s a welcome feature. The vocal work is top notch, as the seamless transition between cleans and screams is melodic and barbaric to the ears in the best way possible. Everything just seems to click with this track, and it’s sure to be a fan favorite live as it just screams audience participation.
Hopefully this is what we can expect from the full length album. A more canorous and varied approach to song writing while still retaining the fierce and savage sadism sound Sworn In has quickly become known for. You can stream the new song below, and be sure to preorder The Lovers/The Devils now. It drops April 7th and is definitely shaping up to be a top album for 2015.
