I can't believe that I actually waited over a year for this

Warning: Cool Album Art Does Not Make for a Good Album

This Was the Real Cover. Record Labels Rejected It

I'll first let it be known that I'm a huge Ray Herrera fan. The man is easily one of the best drummers alive today and that's what makes Arkaea's Years in the Darkness so absolutely painful to listen to. He simply deserves better than this. Especially now given that Dino has stolen his real band away from him and left Ray with this sub-par side project.

This album is mostly comprised of half-finished Fear Factory songs that seem to lack so much of what made Fear Factory such a good band to begin with. It's just missing something that made Fear factory so memorable. The other half of the album tries to come up with more original ideas... and fails. There simply isn't much to like about this album aside from the drumming which is far from Herrera's best.

Maybe this wouldn't be as intolerable if Jon Howard's singing voice didn't sound exactly like CHester Bennington of Linkin Park. And for the record, he can sing in a different voice as heard in the track Lucid Dreams, making me wonder why he chooses to sound like the singer of a band that nobody will admit to have once liked. He should either stick to his non-Chester voice or just scream his head off since he's still a good screamer, yet his whiny Linkin Park impersonation just sounds bad and in 2009, it has the same effect as somebody trying to sound like Jim Gillette in 1997 and for Jon Howard to not realize how cringe-inducing his voice sounds- while at the same time having better vocal options- is simply unforgivable.

A few cool riffs aside, this album blows and ruined every expectation that I had. And I really, truly wanted this band to rule so that a fat asshole could be put in his place. Avoid at all costs.

4/10