Roadrunner "Alive Or Just Breathing" - Killswitch Engage

"Alive or Just Breathing" was the unexpected M-80 of bludgeoning riffs, Carcass-like guitar harmonies and impassioned vocals that made everything else going on in metal and hardcore at the time "post-Killswitch". It was the destroyer of Nu-Metal. It brought back the power of the riff and showed the the breakdown was good for more than just the entirety of a Hatebreed song. "Alive Or Just Breathing" is an important record that no one saw coming -- just like the best of them.
The groundwork was laid on Killswitch's preceding self-titled release on Ferret -- largely a batch of tracks based on riffs and parts bassist Mike D. had in mind for his former band, Overcast. "AOJB" was a whole different matter. Adam Dutkiewicz's production and Andy Sneap's mix (the band having chosen Andy for his awesome work on Testament's "The Gathering") come slamming down from the now unmistakable opening riff to "Numbered Days". Vocalist Jesse Leach lays into the song with an apocalyptic passion that spells out a rapture of its own by the time the last note fades out.
From there, the record is relentless. "Self-Revolution", "Life To Lifeless", "Just Barely Breathing", even the album's slow-grind of a closer "Rise Inside" show not a moment of wasted space. Joel Stroezel reveals himself as one of metal's most unexpected riff-sters out there, never showboating but certainly not letting you forget that what he's laying down across Mike D. and then-drummer Adam D.'s stomp is strictly bad-ass.
Of course, it's "My Last Serenade" that remains "AOJB"'s signature moment. An unforgettable song with an unbelievable vocal hook that the metalcore hordes still have yet to equal. It was also an eerie foreshadowing of Jesse Leach splitting the show a few months after the album's release.
Howard Jones has stated many times that "Element of One" was the track that got him hooked on KsE. While the song feels a bit underwritten, in a lot of ways it is the bridge between the Jesse era and what was to follow.
The fact that this was a self-produced record made largely on weekends at the studio (Zing in Westfield, Mass) where Adam D. worked from a band that started pretty much as a "recording project" between ex members of Overcast and Aftershock speaks volumes about what was to follow. Hell, only two members (Mike and Joel) remain in the band doing what they were when this record was recorded as Adam soon after found his rightful cape-wearing place on guitar.
So Generation Metalcore say thank you. All you damn kids have still yet to live up to the blueprint spelt out on "AOJB".