Killswitch Engage's album, Alive or Just Breathing, is an unbelievably heavy CD.
Visions of old Metallica, Ozzy, and early Maiden all slam dance around in my head as the first brutal beats form this disk declare to the world the severity and passion of their music. Perhaps, however, what sets Killswitch Engage apart, is their ability to take the better elements of that good, old fashioned, heavy, speedy, thrash blended genre of yesteryear, and blend it with all of the modern elements of hardcore that make the scene so spectacular. While you definitely get your daily-recommended dose of double bass on this album, you also get chungga-chungga heaviness and spectacular lead vocals that leave the listener reeling in a state of pandemonium that only a talented and brutally metal CD can induce.

The lyrics on the album are just as abrasive and chaotic as the music. In Numbered Days, talks of impending doom and destruction abound, "the time approaches, fall, chanting inspiration for the righteous, dislocation from the social order...Babylon you will fall, your days are numbered, who will hear your cries as you fall." In Fixation on Darkness, there is a call to arms against the shadow of evil that has overcome the world, "light transfiguration of the soul, of the soul, of the mind, tell them they will not hold us down, it's time for change."

Alive or just breathing embodies what is good in heavy music right now. From the beginning to the end, this is the complete package. This album is easily a musical "10" in a metal scene that often falls prey to musical mediocrity.