A Life Divided are from Germany. This is their second album. They sound a lot like
Linkin Park circa
Hybrid Theory or perhaps
Meteora. Their songs are built around crunching riffs that eventually erupt into soaring choruses, with lyrics that are basically ESL gibberish ("This couldn't end up like this/Just like a servant's bound to fall/We're about to lose it all"). The CD credits reveal that they have three guitarists, but considering that there's not a measure of soloing to be heard anywhere on the disc, that might well be part of some make-work program instituted by the German Institute of Rock. In any case, when they're not emulating
Linkin Park, they sound surprisingly similar to
Depeche Mode circa
Violator. Which raises the question, why would anyone listen to
A Life Divided when he or she could just listen to
Linkin Park or
Depeche Mode? Nothing on
Passenger is better than their influences, or even unique enough to justify spending time or money on the record. It's not bad -- it's competently played, and the songs are reasonably well written. But it very nearly redefines "inessential." ~ Phil Freeman