Understand here that when I say Apiary aren't doing anything new within the genre that it isn't a bad thing, necessarily. What they do well is bring to mind the best moments of Lamb of God, and vocalist Jason Ingram is a dead on ringer for Karl from the now defunct Earth Crisis, and they can create those dissonate, squealy riffs just as well as say, Turmoil and Converge, but that's all they seem to be able to do. Here again, not a bad thing, but that's also what I mean when I say that they are bringing stale elements to the table. I've heard Turmoil and Converge and Earth Crisis all before, so LOST IN FOCUS's immediate impact might be lost due to the dangerously close similarity Apiary bares to the above bands.

Secondly, there's the squawking guitars. That sonic element seems to be employed in EVERY song, and after 14 of them, it tends to get a bit annoying. I'm stoked that they can crank out some off kilter and outta left field type riffs, and to their credit they do take them into a new realm by juxtapositioning them over the crunchy breakdowns here, but still, just annoying after so long. Nora can get away with it, but not Apiary. Hell, no one can after 14 songs.

Apiary are surely a capable band, and those of you who sport hoodies year round and like to practice your TAI BO moves in the moshpits will be wetting yourselves over them, but I honestly, no matter how good they can play within the confines of this genre, cannot see them being nothing more than a fringe band in the movement unless they take some more sonic chances and bring something new in. Until then, Apiary's LOST IN FOCUS is going to be one of those records that I didn't love, nor did I hate, but will only yank out every now and again to hear the few moments where they were really onto something and firing on all creative cylinders. But, like most, Apiary are a youthful bunch so I am almost willing to forgive their lack of inventiveness here and call this a decent record even if it is stuff I've heard many times before. As it stands though, metalcore completists will want this, but not too many other people will be rushing out to purchase it....