Fear Before The March Of Flames are not a very well known name in the emo/hardcore scene yet, but "Odd How People Shake" seems to be an album intent on changing that. Having already begun to start to make a name for themselves with their early recordings, this Colorado based group have now fully channeled their energy into staggered discordant riffing, ferocious screams and the kind of heart-on-sleeve melodic vocals that empathize catharsis over commercial success. Along the lines of a more screamo influenced Thursday, Vaux or Hopesfall, this quintet frequently explode like an emotion filled hand grenade, recollect themselves, and then repeat with a determined art-punk flair.

Unquestionably hungry, the songs crash and thrash about, taking on many faces throughout their duration's. At times bringing to mind a less spastic version of The Blood Brothers, the material here strongly relies on chaotic structuring and edgy in your face riffing to compliment the delirious vocal work as the disc continues on. Streamlining this disjointed approach with a substantial amount of now somewhat cliche flat emotional wails and spoken word build-ups, the band attempt to add intelligence to their metallic animation but often only come up with mixed results.

Perhaps the one thing that really holds the group back on this effort is the fact that the insanity they often try to capture seems far too caged to really get the adrenaline pumping. Each song tends to fall back upon standard emo/post hardcore reminiscent singing to ground itself, while a meandering pace is exercised far too often overall. This in turn causes the album to really lack any surprise, even though the band do their best to remedy this with erratic part changes. In the end, they definitely make a good effort to break out of their own trappings, but it still seems as though they're going to need more over the top antics and a far more unique identity to fully terrorize the rapidly expanding populace of the currently crowded screamo/hardcore scene.