Do you see that guy being burned at the stake on the cover of the album? Turns out that's symbolic of the pain you will often suffer while attempting to listen to this album.

In dragging out the poetic concept to its fullest, Inked in Blood has opted do divide their album into four stanzas: Conditions, Convictions, Confessions, and Resolve. Going into the later stanzas, Lay Waste the Poets actually gets a little better, but never really hits a point that would be considered "good."

The opening track, "All That Remains," starts off with an awful scream of the title that just sounds over the top, and as a result, ridiculously cheesy. This track also feels dragged out at 5:26, and just chugs along slowly, which is never a good way to start an album. This feeling continues with a few 4-plus minute songs, and another 5-plus minute one later in the album. They are far from poetic masterpieces and get boring shortly into each of them.

The listener can start getting into a few things by track 6, "The Sonnettes of Our Lives," but it's too little, too late. They are not a band completely without talent, but it seems that their sound has been derived (unfortunately) from some of the less gifted hardcore acts. In the end, it just sounds like Inked in Blood is trying to sound too bad-ass, and that they are missing the element of musical quality that is needed for a solid album.