This is the ninth album by the British metal core outfit, and the first that topped the metal charts on release. The band’s leader and main songwriter, Tom Searle, died in 2016 from skin cancer, and its great to see the band carry on and reach new heights. The album is a loose concept album based around the battles that rage each day between the negative and positive, and the way we treat things around us – especially Mother Nature.
I personally would love for social media to be taken away from the human race for a year to show them what an amazing thing it is. Anyhoo, to the music. And it’s a typical huge expansive piece from the band with a lot of bases covered musically and vocally – from the screamo, to the clean and beautiful. Some track highlights for me are Black Lungs, which has a great under groove and tone, Discourse Is Dead, which changes from supremely heavy to the beautiful and melodic, and the unbelievably epic and huge An Ordinary Extinction, which is my favourite on the record. It has a great riff and huge groove and vibe – a big shout out to drummer Dan Searle. Animals, with its big pounding intro and the subjective matter is really dark, a message for all. The almost pop metal of Meteor is as catchy as an un-named virus – this is what the band are really good at.
It’s nice to see a band that are this far into their career still trading to evolve and grow.
8.5/10 from The Grooveman.
