Dying Is Your Latest Fashion

Album Review

On Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, Vegas quintet Escape the Fate are actually quite competent in the emo vein of post-hardcore that they reside in, providing all of the emotional singing versus throaty growling and winding guitar lines versus hardcore breakdowns necessary. The pummeling drumbeats never falter (except in the obligatory acoustic closer, the bitter "The Day I Left the Womb"), and the band's collective love of metal is always lingering somewhere in the background. Escape the Fate do it up with enough p**s, vinegar, and melodic hooks to spare, the mosh pit sure to swell and explode at the mere opening notes of their sets, although the music sounds like it could be played by From First to Last, the Used, or a more abrasive My Chemical Romance. The band addresses love and loss through standard-issue blood-soaked imagery of guillotines, corpses, red lipstick, and darkness, and vocalist Ronnie Radke sounds like he means each impassioned line. Fans of every eye-linered band Victory Records puts out will care about what he's saying, and for them, Escape the Fate deliver the goods sealed with a tough, fashionable sneer.