Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
Plead the Widow’s Cause – Silver Glass Stare
For an idea of what to expect from Plead the Widow’s Cause’s new LP, look no further than the band’s inspiration playlist for the album, featuring among others Flyleaf, Misery Signals, As Cities Burn, Strongarm, Shai Hulud, and Beloved. Indeed, Silver Glass Stare finds a middle ground between late ’90s metalcore and the more melodic strain of the genre that cropped up in the decade following. Plead the Widow’s Cause take a decidedly different tack than most of the revivalists cropping up these days–don’t expect any H8000 worship or tremolo riffs here–and as a result their sound which might once have seemed stale comes across as fresh.
There are notably few breakdowns on Silver Glass Stare–the very best ones are at the end of opener “Marah” in the bridge of “Life Moves in a Circle.” Instead, for the most part the band barrels forward at a breakneck pace, rarely slowing down and never indulging in balladry. The gang vocals on “Burn Bright, Burn Out” and “Trapped Within” feel more threatening than communal, and the clean vocals on “Jet Black Heart” are strained and anguished more than tuneful.
On tracks like “Grey,” “Clip the Wings,” and “Paper Cranes” they veer toward a melodic hardcore style, cutting almost all the metal influence out; when Plead the Widow’s Cause are at their least heavy–the pairing of “Emerald Eyes” and “Sunset” in the middle of the album–is when they turn in their weakest material. Even then, though, they’re adept enough in deploying post-hardcore tropes that a couple missteps doesn’t take away from how impressive the rest of Silver Glass Stare is.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
Memphis May Fire – Shapeshifter
Shapeshifter is an appropriate title for Memphis May Fire’s eighth LP. They’ve come a long way from their Trustkill days, and they’ve morphed into something altogether different than the scrappy melodic metalcore band of Sleepwalking and The Hollow. In the fifteen years since their debut LP Memphis May Fire has followed a similar trajectory to many of their peers: where before they were a metalcore band with pop hooks, what’s on display on Shapeshifter is the work of a pop band with an interest in metalcore. There are, to be sure, ways to do that well–take onetime tourmates letlive. for example, or Knocked Loose associate Poppy. Unfortunately, Memphis May Fire offer up the worst of what each genre has to offer.
Opener “Chaotic” grafts awkward breakdowns onto what is essentially a standard-issue top-40 electropop song, and it hardly picks up much from there. “Infection,” with its spacey beat and “ah-ah” backing vocals, feels like a Sirius Octane take on CCM; the chorus of “Paralyzed” is catchy, deserving better than its nu-metal verses, an influence also tapped on “Necessary Evil” and the grating title track. Replace Matty Mullins’ vocals on the bland “Hell Is Empty” and it could be an Imagine Dragons song–down to its handclap-laden bridge and its Hot Topic t-shirt chorus of “hell is empty / the devil is here.” His lyricism is hardly more inspired elsewhere: “it’s always darkest just before the light,” he croons on “The Other Side.” The final two tracks are both extended takes on the love-as-war metaphors, literalized in the title of closer “Love Is War.”
There are a couple bright spots: “Overdose” is a serviceable pop rock song, its jittery, dark electronics making for a nice contrast again its genuinely catchy hook; Mullins slips into a falsetto briefly during the final chorus of the otherwise staid “Necessary Evil.” That’s one of the few moments on Shapeshifter when he sounds genuinely emotional rather than studied and mechanical. Too much of the album feels focus-grouped and preplanned, lacking the urgency of both great pop and great metalcore.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
heavenscoldhands – heavenscoldhands
One look at the artwork for heavenscoldhands’ self-titled EP should make it clear exactly what lane the Montreal quintet operates in. Lo-fi metalcore that looks, sounds, and feels like it could’ve come out in ’97 is a dime a dozen, sure, but while heavenscoldhands might be reverent of their forebears they manage to keep things interesting over heavenscoldhands’ sub-fifteen-minute runtime. After the requisite ambient instrumental intro track, this one titled “Intertwined Reflections” and clocking in at forty-three seconds, the band wastes little time. “Elegy” is absolutely punishing, with mononymous vocalist Xavier employing high-pitched shrieks, guttural death growls, and everything in between in the track’s first minute alone.
The guitars often seem to be lapping at his heels, fighting for the spotlight, and while the grimy production is a feature on releases like this, not a bug, it can be a shame; there are bright, melodic guitar lines all over heavenscoldhands–right after the first breakdown in “Elegy,” recurring throughout “Unfamiliar Ceilings,” in the second verse of “A Distant Memory”–that help elevate it over many similar releases from heavenscoldhands’ peers who need every moment of every song to be as heavy as possible.
This is not, to be clear, a particularly melodic EP: there are no choruses here, no clean vocals. Still, Xavier often slips into a spoken word delivery, typically preceding a particularly hard mosh part, and heavenscoldhands is not afraid to show off their dynamic range. The chaotic, unpredictable closer “A Distant Memory” feels whiplash-inducing in the way it constantly zags over three minutes and forty-six seconds, and its bridge is the EP’s softest moment–before, of course, it lurches into perhaps the EP’s heaviest moment. But the preceding “Six Souls Taken” should be proof enough that heavenscoldhands knows how to rip. The song is unrelenting, sounding like a gradual descent into hell. Its final minute brings a gnarly melodeath riff into the fold, and Xavier’s howls as “Six Souls Taken” ends are unintelligible. All that’s clear is that he’s pained, a brutal ending to a brutal song. There are a lot of bands right now making music like heavenscoldhands, but right now there’s only one heavenscoldhands. It’ll be gratifying to see how much higher they can climb from here.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
—
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
The Alternative is ad-free and 100% supported by our readers. If you’d like to help us produce more content and promote more great new music, please consider donating to our Patreon page, which also allows you to receive sweet perks like free albums and The Alternative merch.