Album Review: Walkways - Bleed Out, Heal Out

Does it matter where a band comes from? In general, I would say no, it shouldn't make any difference what corner of the world a band happens to call home. Music is music, regardless of where it's made. Of course, that doesn't mean there are times when you're surprised to see some countries pop up on a bio sheet. Take, for example, Walkways. They hail not from any of the usual hotbeds of metal, but from Israel. That is an unusual place to hear this music coming from, and sadly it invites the opportunity for discussions of geopolitics I don't want to get into. Their home is a controversial subject, which may or may not come into play as they carry on and potentially grow their audience.

Walkways has a little bit of everything that currently makes up mainstream metal. There are low-tuned chugging riffs, vocals that range from gruff shouts to falsetto crooning, and a focus on giving every song an appealing hook. It's a strategy that is supposed to spread the band's potential audience by giving everyone something in the mix they can enjoy. That's not wrong, but it also leads to an album that can spend too much time veering away from the band's strengths. When they try to inject atmospheric sections into the songs, it detracts from their more energetic moments.

The other aspect that gets in the way is the band's interpretation of what it means to make emotional music. They take that to mean peppering songs with slower moments, and giving the hooks backing vocals that are soft and somber, which don't boost those parts up the way a chorus should. The songs build to what are supposedly big moments, and the way the vocals are put together sound sad and small compared to what they could be.

Sometimes we complain about music being formulaic, but there's a reason why bands stick to what works. It helps us, as listeners, know whether or not we're going to like what we hear. The singles Walkways put out for this record were solid tracks that sounded interesting enough to get me to listen to the whole thing, but they didn't indicate the full array of sounds the band was going to be using. When we experience the full gamut of vocal stylings, they aren't what I was expecting to hear. Yes, expectations do matter.

But what this record comes down to is a fundamental question, one I'm not sure they resolved. Can modern metal and atmospheric dreamscapes coexist? This album struggles to get the balance right. There is certainly an ebb and flow, a diversity to the tempos and feelings, all of which is a good thing. There is also, however, a disconnect between the parts that are almost dream-pop and the parts that are full-on metalcore choruses. I don't hear quite enough connective tissue holding the two sides of the equation together. This is where a formula would help, where it would be obvious exactly what the aim is.

Walkways do give us some solid hooks through the record, and the idea of emotional heavy metal is one I can get behind. The choruses here give me the same feeling as Light The Torch's album from last year. That's the potential, but the route to get there is blocked off for Walkways right now. "Bleed Out, Heal Out" has moments of potential, but it's not there yet as a whole record. With a little more focus, they might be able to get there.