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Spiritbox had been making waves even earlier than they launched an album. Their breakthrough observe, 2020’s Holy Curler, combined clanging tech metallic, explosive choruses and thrumming electronica with the crushing breakdowns so beloved of the metalcore scene they emerged from, inspiring a raft of imitators. The next 12 months, debut album Everlasting Blue expanded upon these sounds, including extra types to their repertoire; the title-track was a wonderful slab of contemporary prog metallic, Damage You had echoes of an early 2000s nu metallic membership banger, and We Dwell In A Unusual World was digital pop-adjacent.
Admittedly, in hindsight that stylistic variance didn’t all the time come collectively coherently. However the album’s standout moments – Damage You, Silk In The Strings, Secret Backyard, Circle With Me, Yellowjacket (that includes Sam Carter) – had been of world-beating high quality, under- pinned by vocalist Courtney LaPlante’s emotionally candid lyrics, which linked with audiences on a visceral degree.
4 years, two EPs and a Megan Thee Stallion remix/collaboration later – yeah, we didn’t see these coming both – they’ve reached a brand new excessive. On Tsunami Sea, the riffs are tighter and the mosh- calls extra bilious – Courtney’s snarl of ‘You all deserve one another!’ throughout Delicate Backbone is without doubt one of the most venomous the band have dropped up to now. The digital methods used on older tracks reminiscent of We Dwell In A Unusual World and Angel Eyes, which had been expanded on all through these EPs (Rotoscope and The Worry Of Worry), have been folded into the band’s core sound in an exciting approach, and are actually deployed with a confidence that makes them a fully-fledged a part of their toolkit.
Tsunami Sea incorporates each lyrical and musical throughlines that affirm it as Spiritbox’s most targeted inventive assertion up to now. Even the title is completely chosen, reflecting the album’s conceptual edge. Whether or not it’s the crashing, calamitous riffs of opener Fata Morgana mimicking a damaging wave sweeping away all it touches, the oceanic depths of the melodies within the title-track, or the frequent, water-based lyrical metaphors used to discover the melancholy and nervousness Courtney has contended with, there’s a way of continuity that ties even probably the most disparate tracks of Tsunami Sea collectively.
That doesn’t come at the price of killer songs, both. From the concussive Black Rainbow to the trance-meets-metal mash-up of Crystal Roses and the gloomy low-end of Experience The Wave – a track that carries echoes of Korn and extra balladic Slipknot fare like Vermilion – Spiritbox are nonetheless crafting huge anthems. Good Soul and Preserve Candy might tread near trendy metalcore staples reminiscent of Architects’ Doomsday or Whereas She Sleeps’ Silence Speaks, however Spiritbox’s canny ear for mixing components in contemporary new methods ensures the tracks are elevated past easy style conventions.
Whether or not they may proceed to affect wider developments throughout the metalcore and
alt metallic panorama stays to be seen. However Tsunami Sea feels just like the second Spiritbox firmly step into their very own as a band who might deal with the likes of Carry Me The Horizon and Sleep Token, as the subsequent zeitgeist-setting act.
Tsunami Sea is out this Friday, March 7. Order Metallic Hammer’s Spiritbox challenge to seek out out the story behind the album
