This album walks a very fine line. Sure, bands like Meshuggah and Blood Has Been Shed can used crushing, repetitive riffs to make great songs that captivate you for the entire listen, but not every band can pull this style off. Enter A Life Once Lost, a band who has been somewhat critically acclaimed in the past. They follow this same formula, and at times they do it rather well, but like I said, they walk a very fine line. A few missteps and this would just be boring.

Right off the bat I'm heavily reminded of Meshuggah, in fact, around the 1:30 mark of the first track, "Surreal Atrocities" I could swear I'm listening to "New Millennium Cyanide Christ". The band churns through nine tracks with machine like precision, which is fine in some cases, but in others it begins to wear thin. In the past, the band has shown a bit more variety, and that does shine through from time to time on this disc, and that is where I believe this band is at its finest. As with many bands who try to emulate Meshuggah's style, A Life Once Lost just falls short.

The lyrics on this disc have a dark, ominous tone to them. Take the song "Maudlin" for example: "Her clothes smelled of mildew, ropes burned through her fragile wrists, I remember standing over her, wondering if she would die or live". They're a bit vague at times, but it's not very hard to get the idea. Like a lot of the bands on Deathwish Inc., A Life Once Lost isn't all about rainbows and bunny rabbits.

Basically, if you can't get enough for Meshuggah styled metalcore bands, you'll probably want to give this band a listen. I'm not that all the hype surrounding this band is warranted, but this is a solid release.