Rowan Bruce
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.
Although Future Static’s sound morphs and distorts to fit their eclectic sensibilities throughout the album, Ornaments & Memories knows exactly which heartstrings to pluck to create an emotional moment of calm. Tracks like ‘Odessey’ and the title track ‘Ornaments & Memories’ drop the pace down and pull focus onto Cook’s elegant, soaring, clean vocals with subtle dual guitars and post-rock inspired ambience before cutting the tension like a guillotine blade slamming down when the band comes swinging back in with the distortion turned up to eleven. Closing track ‘Lux’ does this trick especially well, building up so subtly that when the rug pull moment happens and the vocals switch from heavenly to frenzied, it feels incredibly natural and satisfying.
While broadening their horizons, Future Static seem to really understand what makes their specific brand of eclectic metalcore so special. Ornaments & Memories refuses to stay in one place long enough to get dull while building on the sounds that have made Future Static a name to keep an eye on.