Led by snarling frontwoman Amariah Cook, Melbourne five-piece Future Static have been making significant waves both at home and abroad since their breakout debut album, 2023s Liminality, mixing the airtight production of acts like Tesseract and Spiritbox with a ravenous metal spirit and a love of sonic exploration. On their follow-up, Future Static lock on with laser focus, drilling further into what made their debut interesting while continuing to spread their creative wings.
Opening track ‘Ephemeral’ expands on Liminality’s atmospheric approach to modern metalcore with more intense blast beats and technical, unpredictable guitars while still pushing Cook’s vocals into the forefront. Constantly switching from Evanescence style cleans to Dying Wish-esque larynx-shredding screams and even a brief verse that closes in on unhinged rapping, Cook’s vocals refuse to ever stay in one place while a maelstrom of distortion swirls behind her. Despite sounding incredibly expansive, Future Static manage to bring everything together into a neat package perfect for the most intense metal archivist and the Download Festival first-timer to meet in the middle.
As Ornaments & Memories continues, Future Static put their twist on a number of different metal subgenres without ever losing their unique edge. The track ‘Swing’ gives the quintet the opportunity to do their best Linkin Park impression with a scratchy nu-metal guitar riff and vocals that leap between rapping and manic screaming, while ‘Dream Suite’ sounds closer to Ithaca, really allowing Cook to stretch her melodramatic cleans over mathcore-esque guitars leading up to a chugging breakdown and ‘Off The Map’ strips away the guitars entirely for the first minute in favour of trip-hop style retro synths and punchy electronic percussion. While Future Static wear plenty of different hats throughout Ornaments & Memories, these new sounds never feel out of place or forced, instead allowing the band to add more and more weapons to their ever-shifting sonic arsenal.
After an almost unheard burst of momentum with nearly 1 million monthly listeners after its first full year, it seems many people’s attention has been grabbed. As thrown seemingly keep up an unrelenting pace with Unwanted, with a ramped up tour schedule and more music videos than you can throw money at, the scene seems more polarised than ever on a new artist. Stemming from rumours of industry plants and nepotism, this record directly claps back at nay-sayers and skeptics alike. Unwanted directly opens the door for this conversation to be had, as let’s be honest, Lundqvist doesn’t half mention it.
Like a red rag to a bull, the record kicks off with ‘critic’, which sets the precedent for both the musicality and lyrical content of the next 20 minutes or so. Immediately it becomes apparent that Lundqvist takes inspiration from somewhere between early Fred Durst and Jesse Pinkman. There are truly enjoyable moments where you find yourself grooving with the phrasing of both the riffs and the lyrical cadence, and the polished spin on this style of nu-metalcore is genuinely interesting at times. However, as you allow yourself to sink deeper into the hook’s grip and the lyrics once again start registering, you are shunted back to reality with what can only be described as the sonic equivalent of operating a bidet in the arctic circle. This song alone is a clap-back at rumours that the band has been plagued with over recent times, such as that they are an industry plant and or are riding off the back of drummer Buster Odeholm’s name and connections. It is hard to ignore with their extremely rapid rise to the top and feature in every remotely alternative streaming playlist ever conceived. Thou that protest too much…
With each new release, there is always the question of whether the Swedes can, at the very least, match their own insanely high bar and, as they have done so effortlessly in the past, even clear it.
In The Shadow Of Your Shadow, absolutely meets the standards expected of a Cult Of Luna album, while taking a few risks and making some refreshing left turns. From a production standpoint, everything is coated in an extra layer of grit, taking on a sonic palette more aligned with extreme metal than before. This stylistic choice, along with Johannes Persson opting for a gruffer vocal performance, makes In The Shadow Of Your Shadow feel somehow earthier, more human. It adds extra weight to the blindingly brilliant final stretches of a track like ‘Breach’ and perfectly aligns with the hardcore-inspired ‘The Rift’, which employs a frenetic tempo that Cult Of Luna have hardly ever employed through their career but works so well when used in this context. Pairing up with Gojira’s Joe Duplantier for ‘Sadness Will Reign’ is inspired, and the mix of his inimitable vocal with Persson’s refreshed take is glorious cacophony.
Underdark mastered the art of bleak presentation in 2023 with Managed Decline, which stretched the boundaries of black metal, post-rock and other petrified accessories into a record of perfectly captured nihilism. Since then, their performances have stunned with ferocity and raw intensity, with devastating sets at Arctangent, Damnation, and Germany’s Culthe Festival cementing them as arguably the UK’s most unforgiving metal spectacle.
Underdark’s latest tale of grim observation, O Come Forth Annihilation, sees them dive deeper into the rotten hypocrisy of present-day Britain. After our introduction comes an ambitious eleven-minute passage of ‘The Hit Piece,’ a bleak slab of corrosive disdain aimed at our media overlords and the open sewer of stories they peddle. Beginning with thunder ringing in every pounding drum, vocalist Abi Vasquez’s monologue of vitriol sits at the top of the throat, on the verge of attack. Its atmosphere is as haunting as any Amenra track; its soaring guitars are glittering, and its vocals are rabid and tear into flesh with a fury only found in black metal’s icy tundra. Vasquez sounds like she has the subject by the throat, digging a claw further into the corporate cancer which has summoned such despair.
‘The Hit Piece’ is emblematic of the album, as it charges between the halls of the genres which make up Underdark’s genetic structure. It begins with a near crescendo from the climax of atmospheric post-metal into peak post-black metal before stampeding out into its second half with blast beats. Its second half is a soaring and desperate crawl into ascendancy as Vasquez sends her anguish skyward, speaking for the angry mob who have reached a breaking point with those in control; she darkens their door to demand answers.
Delving into a new era for the Manchester band, My Only Solution marks the Halloween period with their latest album Glassedhouse. Right from the opener, My Only Solution makes it clear that the themes and concept for the album aren’t merely a gimmick, but rather the lifeblood of the entire project. ‘Start:Stop’ acts as a primer to the world of Glassedhouse as it introduces the first song of the record ‘Open Palms’ with the satisfying clicks of a tape recorder. This desire to both bring the listener into their created world whilst also packing the album full of ear candy really sets the standard as My Only Solution inject every sense of character they can into what is so clearly a true passion project.
Exploring the difficulties of mental health, internal struggles and intrusive thoughts, My Only Solution invite the listener into a hotel of their own creation as they take them through each haunting room and corridor with each brilliant track. Giving Overlook Hotel a run for its money, the atmosphere the band manage to create throughout the album is truly incredible.
Combining this eery backdrop with an abundance of brutal guitar riffs, driving basslines and some incredibly engaging rhythmic sections, Glassedhouse is My Only Solution at their very best, putting out a delightfully hook-infused metal album that is a great showcase of their musical talents. While this new record undoubtedly shows off some of the bands heaviest music to date in delightfully vicious tracks such as ‘Burn’ and ‘Embers’, it also displays some beautifully poignant tracks like ‘Bridges’ which takes a step back as the band flex their atmospheric muscles in a chilled manner akin to legends like Deftones.
Never content to just stay in one lane. Whether pushing song length and structure into previously unseen realms for black metal in the early 90s, to their near complete reinvention as a progressive extreme metal powerhouse into and throughout the 2000s, Enslaved have continuously made music that keeps listeners guessing, and their 17th studio album is no exception.
From the first track proper, ‘I Am Ice (feat. Johan Sara Jr)’, you’re greeted with familiar Enslaved, grim and gloomy, frontman and bassist Grutle Kjellson’s, throaty roar being carried on the rolling swell, that is the chunky rhythmic riffing from fellow original member Ivar Bjørnson, complementing the thunderous drumming of Iver Sandøy, like a Viking raiding party cresting over violent waves in the North Sea, on their way to plunder and pillage. As always with Enslaved their sound is anything but one dimensional, there’s melody crafted in the lead lines, an unsettling and mystic feel, bolstered by the keyboards floating underneath everything.
The true standout moments come from ‘Mountain’ which starts as a hauntingly beautiful acoustic lead track, clean vocals, emotionally rousing melody, and dare it be said, an almost pop song edge. Of course Enslaved are no strangers to allowing a softer edge to shine through, and there is a clear respect for pop songwriting throughout huge portions of their back catalogue, but the opening to ‘Mountain’ stands out as a huge achievement for this band, it shows an intense vulnerability, often ignored in the realms of extreme metal.
This beautiful, soft, emotional song rises, gradually, ever steadily, before dropping completely, the silence, that lasts a mere second is near deafening, and then it happens, and in true Enslaved fashion this is completely unexpected. What happens at the 2:36 mark of this stunning acoustic lead track can only be described as a complete dismantling of everything that they had built before. A deep, doomy, percussive riff, syncopated and polyrhythmic it can only be likened to riffing of classic nu metal, the likes of which you’d expect to hear from Korn. The breaks and pauses help this moment to serve as much as a breakdown as transition into a more traditionally heavy sound. It hits so unexpectedly, and the first few listens can come across quite jarring, but when it clicks, this is one of the single greatest moments this band has ever produced.
