by Kurt Morris

A Life Once Lost's debut album for Deathwish finds the band taking what it presented with its first album on Robotic Empire and installing more double bass drum and thick guitar sound while taking out some of the fast-paced music and instead making the songs more chunky and dense. The vocals are death metal growls, both in a high and low-end range. And yes, there are occasional guitar solos, too. The downside is that none of this seems entirely fierce or interesting as much as it just is an assault on the ears. There is some variation, but for the most part this would sound all the same even to the nominal death metal fan. The band certainly has some talent, but some diversity within the album would have been nice.