Kingcrimsonprog Deep Blue was released in 2010 by Australian Metalcore act Parkway Drive, it was their third full-length studio album and the fan-anticipation surrounding its release was immense.

The album marks a shift in production style for the band as production was not handled by Adam D (of Killwitch Engage) for the first time on a full-length Parkway Drive album. Musically, The band concentrate on the heavier side of their sound, especially favoring their breakdowns and big riffs, which results in a very direct and hard sounding album full of very solid and well constructed songs following a pretty strict musical formula.

The album is a real grower and repeat listens really bring out all the character and little touches. The whole album flows pretty well and each song boasts some some vocal chant that will be stuck in your head for a long time. The real standout tracks are the single ‘Sleepwalker,’ the catchy ‘Home Is For The Heartless,’ and the absolutely gigantic sounding ‘Deadweight,’ which features one of the best breakdowns on the whole album.

If you were being unkind you could call the album one-dimensional but the band also include a few their contemplative passages and technical sections to break up the barrage of aggression and additionally the album is conceptual in nature with the songs all unified by shared lyrical ideas (telling the story of a disillusioned man attempting to find understanding by venturing under the sea only to return to where he started) and both these elements inject enough creativity into the mix to make the album stand out from the crowd as a great record, even among other Parkway Drive albums.

Interestingly for a concept album, Deep Blue is remarkably music-focused and the narrative doesn’t interrupt or overwhelm the music at any point. Its not so much a rock opera with non-musical dialogue and sound effects as an album that just ended up telling a story. It can stand on its own as a set of tight, independent songs or you can sit down with the lyrics and enjoy it with a hidden extra layer of depth and both ways work equally well.

The more you listen to it the more you realize that Deep Blue is an almost flawless album and the only thing that could really be considered wrong with it, is if you already don’t like or have heard too much of the style of music that the band play. While Parkway Drive do not break huge amounts of new ground however, what they do, they do very well indeed. Parkway Drive have Metalcore down to a science and with their rejection of clean vocals altogether, still have something new to offer to metal fans who dislike or have grown tired of the over-saturated clean/light Metalcore sound. You can’t realistically accuse them of ripping off Killswitch Engage exclusively if they don’t employ the same giant clean choruses, arguably the biggest factor in the Killswitch sound.

Overall; the quality of the music speaks for itself and I if you are a fan of the genre, Deep Blue is definitely an album you need to be listening to. It is tight, confident and perfectly formed.

Kingcrimsonprog Horizons is an absolutely fantastic album from Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive.

Opening with the beautiful building ‘Begin,’ straight into the balls out ‘The Siren’s Song,’ the album grabs you right from the get go and never wavers or falters once from begining to end. Parkway Drive are extremly consitent, extremly talented and have found a way to have a unique identity in a staturated market place. What they do is not groundbraking but how well they do it is reason for celebration, if you have any interest in this genre then Parkway Drive are a band you should give serious consideration to.

Singer Winston McCall has a pretty great voice and attitude, he has a array of shouts and screams that range from mild shouting to full on gutteral Death vocals but he never brakes out into the full on shimmering radio choruses that put many fans off from this type of band. If you like some of the advances in Metal in the last decade or so, but couldn’t get past the big choruses then Parkway may be your perfect gateway band.

For everyone else, you’ll know what to expect; musical hooks, catchy riffs, then heavy brakedowns, a lot of double kick drumming and guitar solos that are musical rather than blistering and jagged.

One area that sets Parkway apart is the guitars, which are often complicated and virtuosic enough during the main body of the song to sound like guitar solos, some of the things they come out with are just plain impressive.

The production from Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz is top notch, the man just has an ear for how this music should sound, much the same as Scott Burns had for early ninties Death Metal.

To sumarise, Horizons is a fantastic Parkway Drive album and Parkway Drive are a fantastic band that you really ought to check out.

Kingcrimsonprog If you are a Parkway Drive fan then this is definitely going to be of some interest to you, a disc that contains the excellent 2004 EP 'Don't Close Your Eyes,' in addition to their tacks from the harder to get a hold of I Killed The Prom Queen Split CD, 'What We've Built,' Split EP with Shoot To Kill & Think Straight, then finally the track "Hopeless" from a compilation album.

Don't be put off by the idea that the songs are from before the band broke through though, as the quality of music is very high all around and much of the material remains in the bands live show to this day.

The sound is not as refined as on the band's later albums like Horizons or Deep Blue, but the style is one hundred percent there already, everything that you like about Parkway Drive is present and correct on this handy collection, giving you exactly what you want... more heavy, breakdown centric music topped off with Winston's distinct voice.

Standout moments include an early version of "Smoke 'Em If Ya Got 'Em," the very harsh "Swallowing Razorblades," and certainly the title track.

To summarize; if you like Parkway Drive and are looking for more, this is a great purchase.