oh perfect i just so happen to
have a chart of my 25 favourite releases of the year so far (out of the 75 i've listened to and still have to catch up on. very normal)
top 1 since release has been
Foreign Hands - What's Left Unsaid. technically not their debut full length, but they've kind of disowned that other one and it's been like 8 years since so this may as well be. after an excellent split with Cast In Blood in 2019 and two eps in 2022 (all essential listening!), they continue the hot streak and deliver what I consider to be the best album of the metalcore revival.
calling it a revival might be incorrect since it hasn't really been GONE, but I'm referring to bands such as Dying Wish, Balmora, seeyouspacecowboy, Cauldron, xnomadx, Wristmeetrazor, 156/silence, Static Dress, Since My Beloved (RIP they played their farewell show recently) etc etc. all clearly inspired by varying eras of metalcore, but with a lot of heart and reverence for those who came before. Balmora even throw a cover of the hood classic
feinbhas a ghabhail by Prayer for Cleansing into their live sets on occasion.. but I might be getting off track here a bit.
What's Left Unsaid has a solid variety of these influences. God Under Fingernails opens up with the best Every Time I Die riff I've heard since their tragic breakup. Conditioned For A Head-On Collision has a chorus that would put the catchiest Underoath songs to shame. Until The Sun Fades features the vocalist of the legendary 7 Angels 7 Plagues! They've got the breakdowns of Poison The Well and the overwrought, dramatic lyrics of Prayer for Cleansing.
All of the comparisons may seem a bit reductive, but I assure you they do this while sounding firmly like their own band. The influence feels celebratory instead of plagiaristic, like they're just as stoked about all of these bands as I am and they want to share that with you within the context of their own songs. Plus, if you haven't heard any of them before, this serves as an excellent primer for the genre as a whole, and you could branch out into a ton of cool shit.
The breakdowns beat ass, the choruses soar, and it hasn't left my rotation since it dropped back in June.
every single band mentioned above is mandatory listening and you WILL be quizzed. hit the books.
as for releases I'm looking forward to: I tend to forget something is coming out until about a week before it does, so I don't really have some big planned definitive list.
156/silence have a new album coming in September and the singles have been promising. Always liked this band's integration of nu metal/horror lite aesthetics. not sure how else to describe it; the album's called
People Watching and
the cover is a creepy guy staring at you, but he isn't really doing anything outright horrible in the frame. when I saw Slipknot a couple years back, they had a video playing on stage that was like. a person scratching feverishly at their neck, but it was framed just so that you could INFER that was what's happening and didn't outright show you the act. your brain puts it together on its own, and something about this cover strikes me the same way, like there's something very unsettling happening in the parts I can't see.
anyway they've added clean vocals so I'm sure there's some people who aren't stoked about it, but
Better Written Villain has been stuck in my head since it came out.
Fit For An Autopsy's new album
The Nothing That Is comes out October 25th and
Hostage is the lead single. digging it more than a lot of their last album, and I still thought that one was pretty good, so hopes are high. continues their trend of becoming Gojira with more breakdowns, but there are significantly worse bands than Gojira to pull from so it works for me. plus that chorus is to die for.
saw these guys twice in the span of two days once with Escuela Grind and The Acacia Strain and my buddy got smoked in the FFAA circle pit, it was very sick
Better Lovers are a band handcrafted to excite me. comprised of most of ETID after the split, the guitarist from Fit For An Autopsy and Greg FUCKING Puciato from The Dillinger Escape Plan on vocals, I'm gonna be laser focused on anything they do.
Highly Irresponsible drops October 25th just like the FFAA record and
A White Horse Covered In Blood is a fun single. owes more to 90s alt rock than you'd think with the musicians at play here, real curious to see what direction they go with the rest of the album.
Touché Amoré are putting out
Spiral In A Straight Line October 11th. seems like a popular month.
Nobody's is a decent single, the uplifting instrumentation against Jeremy's strained voice provides a nice contrast, but is kind of a middle of the road track by their standards. hoping for a bit more punch from the next single, but they're one of my favourite bands so I'll be there day 1 no matter what
