Aiden's new album is like 'Knives' in your ear Friday, May 29, 2009 By Sthephany Delgado/Section Editor/review - photo courtesy of Victory Records Advertising Aiden hasn’t had the best of luck lately, and coming from an “everyday is Halloween” type band, you know their bad luck has to be one of terror.     Their long term guitarist Jake Wambold, left Aiden for “personal reasons” in early 2008, when touring with Kill Hannah in May of the same year.     They pulled out again for “personal reasons,” and their last album ‘Conviction’ in 2007 was met with declining album sales and with disappointment from critics and fans all around. Their Joy Division-Jesus-and-The-Mary-Chain sound was as fit as square pegs are in round holes.     In hopes of redeeming themselves, Aiden released ‘Knives’ on May 12, in order to scrape what they can and make their latest attempt worthwhile.     They have taken the safety route and done what they know best by attempting  to spin it into black gold: woe-is-me lyrics like “Carve a message in my arm in candlelight, sew it up with hate” on their single “Scavengers of the Damned” and epic choruses with catchy guitar riffs on “The Asylum.”     Of course, being a big, bad, and dark band, they’ve included quotes from movies like ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ and ‘The 25th Hour’; in the opening song, “Killing Machine” lead singer, Wil Francis, basically says to screw our God and religion because in the end there is no God.       This album is really nothing new to fans that are familiar to the sounds of Aiden.     If anything, the whole album sounds like a boy with teenage angst who is a little too angry at the world and is screaming at his parents while he’s wearing a Misfits shirt and black makeup smeared around his eyes.     Really, just look at the album cover. Francis is hollering at what could be his parental figures.     Having yet again nothing new to pout about, Aiden resorts to the same scene formula: sing, scream, and repeat.     I’ll give Aiden an absolute A for effort for making an album in the worst of times and still be able to appeal to their old fans but it’s nothing refreshing or ground breaking.     “Elizabeth” and “Excommunicate” is worth a shot at listening to but “Black Market Hell” and “Crucifiction” has that “Dear Diary…” tone to it.     Prepubescent teenage boys and girls will lap this album up but for older fans who hoped for more from this Seattle based band, it falls flat on their leather knee high boots.

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