It would be easy, exceptionally so even, to lump a band like
Iwrestledabearonce into the same class of bands as
Attack Attack!, where metalcore and electronic elements are fused together into a hyper-ironic mess of heavy breakdowns and Auto-Tuned pop insanity. While
Iwrestledabearonce certainly skirt this line, there’s something about their sound that helps them avoid this kind of classification, instead putting them somewhere between a scene band and the avant metal vanguard where bands like
Dillinger Escape Plan and
Daughters melt minds with reckless abandon. On their second album,
Ruining It for Everybody, the band continues to establish itself as a more serious player in the metal world than anyone could’ve expected, delivering an album that lurches unpredictably between twisting discordance and pleasant, flowing ambience, agitating the musical waters with an acerbic blast of frenzied screaming and searing, rapid-fire guitar blasts before calming them down with singer Krysta Cameron’s soaring vocals. While it would seems like these two disparate elements would be at odds with each other, the band is able to create a natural flow between the two aspects of its sound, alternating between the calm and the storm with a naturalness that would seem to be impossible given the blistering pace of the music. It’s this organic quality that allows
Iwrestledabearonce to stand apart from their peers. The songs on
Ruining It for Everybody don’t feel slapped together, and despite the fact that they don’t seem like they should work, the band pulls off their sound well. Add the album's concise running time to the mix and you have an album that works like Ritalin for anyone with a serious case of heavy metal ADD. ~ Gregory Heaney