Personnel: Sameer Bhattacharya, Jared Hartmann (guitar); Howard Benson (keyboards, programming); James Culpepper (drums, timpani, wind chime). Audio Mixer: Chris Lord-Alge. Recording information: Bay 7 Studios, Valley Village, CA; Sparky Dark, Calabasas, CA. Illustrator: Pat Seals. Texas-based Christian rock/emo-metal quintet Flyleaf's sophomore release jettisons the raw, punk-infused angst of its platinum-selling debut, replacing it with a thick, punchy theatricality that is as progressive as it is radio-ready. Fueled by the electrifying voice of Lacey Mosley, who can build a city with a single soaring note and then tear it down with a lone caterwaul, Memento Mori (musically, at least) owes more to the tech-heavy, similarly faith-based King's X than it does the moody atmospherics of Evanescence, but there's enough angst and obsession here to draw fans of the latter. At 14 songs, most of which bust out the gate with guns blazing, it can be hard to differentiate, especially when the group sticks to the formula of heavy riff/verse/heavy riff/chorus, but between the moody single "Again" and the alternately laid-back and elegiac closer "Arise," the five members of Flyleaf have come awfully close to finding and defining their voice. ~ James Christopher Monger
