“Strangling the crap out of their poor guitars in a contorted and impressively dexterous style, NC’s A Hero A Fake likes things complicated as hell while wielding a penchant for dramatic sing-along choruses on ‘Let Oceans Lie’. Comparisons between AHAF’s sound and that of BTBAM, The Human Abstract, or Protest The Hero are not unwarranted, but the similarities unfortunately serve to render the record unsurprising, despite the fact that they are constantly shifting rhythms and tempos and throwing 300 notes a minute at you. Like the vast majority of progressive or technical records, it’s definitely a grower, and if you stick with it and show it some love, it steadily starts to give you more and more back.”

"School places a huge boundary on us in the form of not being able to tour," beigns A Hero A Fake guitarist Eric Morgan, one of the sextet's four members who juggle band duties with full-time class schedules. "However, this pinned our survival on being 100 percent dedicated, and really pushed us to work hard to develop as musicians." That development blares through on 2008's 'Volatile', the band's Victory debut, which deftly balances brain-scrambling musicianship with Godzilla-sized breakdowns and a monster palette of mood changes. "Our lives are anything but monotonous, and our music reflects this," Morgan continues. "We try to incorporate quickly changing moods and tones to mimic the natural experience." While they haven't yet toured properly behind 'Volatile', AHAF are counting the days until spring, when they'll hit the road, diplomas in hand, to explore a whole new set of experiences.

“There’s definitely something here. Pondering between sleek passages of progressive metal and energetic melodic hardcore, A Hero A Fake cut an alternative viewpoint in the fast-rising pool of technical metal. Although ‘Let Oceans Lie’ occasionally has trouble blending the two personalities, when it works it does so brilliantly, ‘Our Summit, This World’ an example. However, when the band step outside the box completely, as on ‘Dear’, they really start to impress. Their influences are still brashly presented, but A Hero A Fake show a tenacity for skillful and tempered songwriting that holds promise for future releases. A definite prospect.”

“Raspy screams, 808s and a triple shot of guitars best describes this group of NC natives. With the standard scream/sing/breakdown blueprint, ‘Let Oceans Lie’ has everything for avid scream-core fans and more. From sporadic Nintendo-like melodies in “Dear,” to more straightforward guitar harmonies in the title-track, ‘A Hero A Fake’ seems to want to approach it all, and all at once; hell, they even throw in a ballad that could be found on a late night infomercial. They only prevalent fault found here is the lack of depth in lyrics during the clean breakdowns.”

“This is a band that surely knows how this game is played. A HERO A FAKE consists of great musicians and they characterize their style as progressive metal core; well I can’t agree more with that! “Let Oceans Lie” is the second full length album and in the previous “Volatile” the band showed a bit of its potentials, but in this one they got over my expectations. What you are about to hear in “Let Oceans Lie” are pretty much the followings: Prog-math metal riffs infiltrated through a metal core base, intellectual breaks, huge bass-lines, even Latin acoustic passages on “Eckhart”. Inspired solos and astonishing brutal vocals among with the almost fifteen minute “Year In Passing” that closes the album. Never the less make no mistake about “Let Oceans Lie”, it is a very hot release for 2010; it is sure worth checking it out cause these guys are one step further from the rest of this genre. ”

“The cover on Let Oceans Lie actually makes me feel two different things, first I feel secure relaxed and safe whilst looking at the flower in the midst of it all, but then my eyes starts to run through the whole of the picture and realizes that there's a giant storm going on. This is actually also a nice description of the songs, you have a feeling that these songs you've listened to before, but from another band, then it catches on and you realize that it's actually something brand new, these guys have been quite innovative with their songs, and although I myself am not a very big fan of growling, they have actually made that part work, even for me. What makes this a good album I'd say is the more rock'ish tones and the backing vocals mixed with the hard growling part that also exists here. This make Let Oceans Lie a complete album for both the metalhead and the hard rocker. All in all a very good album, which will be appearing several times on my playlist. ”

“There's really no way around continuing to praise the band's two guitarists, as the technical passages are in places so jaw-dropping they almost leave Between The Buried And Me in their shadow. The decision to drop most breakdowns in favour of more challenging and interesting song structures instead helps to create that melodic flow throughout the album which makes "Let Oceans Lie" so good. If you're into heavy, screamed, and growled progressive metalcore that leaves your inner guitar student failing miserably in attempting to learn these songs, don't miss out on the record. At this pace, the next A Hero A Fake album will be among the best albums in its year of release.”