Alive or Just Breathing

Killswitch Engage –Alive or Just Breathing (Roadrunner)

Released in 2003, the second album recorded by Killswitch has now set it’s place I the American metal market. This seminal album came as somewhat of a turning point for the band, changing their line-up from a four piece to a five. While at the same time being produced by now guitarist and resistant clown Adam Dutkiewicz. Sadly however, this was the last album vocalist Jesse Leech sang on, which when he actually left, nearly forced the group to disband.

When listening to the almost god like voice of Leech, you can hear the pain and emotion that comes from his own life experiences. In My Last Serenade, he wrote about the trouble he was feeling during the first tour of the album, due to just getting married a few months before. Much of Leech’s words express how he became tired of the negativity in the world. Songs like Vide Infra explains that people shouldn’t be ridiculed, despite gender, colour or creed. This is most significant in the lyrics, “We are all flesh and blood, I am not afraid to speak my mind. No matter the consequences, stay true to yourself. Through the humble eyes of a child we will realise true equality…”

Other songs like Fixation on the Darkness used ideas of people have both darkness and light within them, and in order to survive you must strike a balance between.

After the re-release of the album in 2005, I compared the differences between Leech’s vocal style and that of former Blood Has Been Shed singer Howard Jones. This had become a compelling argument between many Killswitch fans across the world. I myself can’t say who is better; both bring something to the table, and are equally prevalent in their roles.

As you may or may not know about Killswitch, they were made up from many former bands that all played together in the early ‘90s as part of the local metal/hardcore scene in Massachusetts. Much of Killswitch’s influence came from the different bands they had previously played in, as well as bands that also rose from the ashes of bands like; Overcast, Aftershock, Red Tide, Blood Has Been Shed and of course Shadows Fall.

In my own opinion, this has now become not only one of the key albums in my collection, but a key album in the whole progression of Metal itself. Using the God like voice of leech, Mike D’Antonio holding down the bass, the almost comedic guitar work of Dutkiewicz and Stroetzel and not forgetting the nonchalant, yet explosive drumming of Justin Foley, a.k.a. J Flow. Even though Leech is no longer with the band, Jones now comfortably fills his shoes, and he has left is stamp on heavy metal music.