Any band starting out has to find their sound and figure it out pretty quickly because otherwise, their works are going to sound incomplete and lacking a lot of what makes for a good album. It’s one of the greatest unspoken rules when making music, that many people can overlook without even thinking about considering it, and it’s led to the downfall of many acts. Lifelong clearly knows what they’re going for and with plenty of riffs by their side, their new album is a work that promises good things in the future.

Just having riffs alone is not enough to make for a good album because riffs are the name of the game in several different areas of metal from death, black, doom metal, and punk with everything else in between utilizing riffs to reel in as many keen listeners as possible. It’s all throughout “Seul Contre Tous” that Lifelong uses a clear and unashamed usage of riffs such that their thick presence and undeniable flavors bring a lot to the table for the whole of the album, but you can still feel that Lifelong is still new to this style of metal with their being a decent amount of clunkiness spread throughout this album. Yet, by no means does that ensure that quality doesn’t show up for “Seul Contre Tous” as each track has a tantalizingly thick riff to call its own, and Lifelong plays off them spectacularly. They really know how to keep the listener interesting just from the strings alone to a great extent such that they quickly become the main focus of what Lifelong is constantly delivering, but they never once forget to try their best to show the strengths of everything else that constitutes this album as well. The vocals could use some tweaking but they fit great with the entire sound, the drums are simply thunderous, and the overall musicianship that’s on constant display for all of “Seul Contre Tous” is practically infectious right from the beginning, and it really helps make this album as good as it is.

Like thousands upon thousands of over bands, this is one that can definitely do with some more work to their overall sound before it can become something that I’ll be finding myself going nuts over, but Lifelong is much further along than many others in that process as we can hear here. Tons of what goes into “Seul Contre Tous” is what’s normally a precursor to something really interesting, and I do hope they manage to deliver on that in the future.

LISTEN to “Seul Contre Tous” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Lifelong on Facebook here.