Produced by Casey Bates, he of Portugal The Man, A Skylit Drive and Chiodos fame (wow doesn’t he feel ashamed, but I guess everyone needs a paycheck, right?), “Sleepwalking” is the debut of this Texas hardcore outfit. Memphis May Fire fires off a double combo of melodic vocals, pinch harmonic guitars with screamo and aggro-rock velocity. Their singer left in the middle of their recording with the band “forced” to do a publicity stunt, err, an open audition on MySpace. The result wasn’t a bad choice as Matt Mullins can certainly punctuate a tune with fierce precision but you have to wonder how much is auto-tuned and how much isn’t in this day and age of mall-punk melodies and clone-core. While this band is a cliché and their sound a dime-a-dozen now-a-days, it still has its merits, just not worthy enough to really mention outside of a yawning cast-off comment. Okay I am just kidding, the only merits it boasts is that they are being paid to make music while we are not. Want to run down the list of clichés? Here’s your bulleted list:

1.)    “Funny” song titles that have nothing to do with the lyrics – “You’re Lucky It’s Not 1692” and “North Atlantic vs. North Carolina”

2.)    Obligatory mention of God/Jesus – Liner notes thank God while lyrics say idioms like “We are the chosen, and we claim your life tonight. Breathe in the light that surrounds us. Can you feel it?”

3.)    Screamo/post-emo vocals and pinched harmonics with plenty of generic “breakdowns” – Album weeps of this tired cliché

4.)    Packaged sound – You could listen to this blindfolded and not hear a single iota of Texan hardcore influence, in fact this is as packaged and mall generic as it gets.

Yawn.

Remember when Trust Kill released good music?