Atreyu

By now, everyone should be well aware that when a band opens its record with a number called “Song for the Optimists,” its members are either being way sarcastic, or they’re hippies. When the album is called Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses and contains a song extolling listeners to “Live Every Day Like You’re Already Dead,” that distinction becomes a no-brainer. That record and those songs belong to Atreyu, which blends metal and melody through the use of good and evil vocalists. Ultimately, maybe Atreyu prefers to make music more suited to the evil force opposing its heroic namesake from The NeverEnding Story, the Nothing. In any case, it sure enough sounds as if it could use a luck dragon of its own.