Alt. – Abeyance
Release Date: 16th June 2023
Label: Sharptone Records
Order/Stream
Genre: Metalcore, Alternative.
FFO: Bring Me the Horizon, Deftones, Windwaker, Billie Eilish, Erra.
Review By: Metal Miguel
Metal from Australia is not a new thing and there are many great bands to listen to who ticks a lot of boxes for style and genre, so when this album dropped in from the Boss-Man, I had an incline of where it might go. It would seem I had got that one wrong and another reason for you not to judge a cover and all that, but I was caught off guard for many reasons, and I’ll walk you through them.
There is a heavy pop element but not in a modern, current, awful way but in a more melodic and progressive way like they use in films that require slow-motion, brightly coloured flashback sequences, where our hero or protagonist has to look deep within their soul to find the reasons or strength to carry on in pursuit of whatever it is all about, convoluted I know, but I wasn’t about to start naming modern pop bands, as I’m pretty sure I’d be wrong on all points, but I’m pretty sure my reasoning and explanation will definitely help someone who listens to that style of music. That’s not to say that I don’t have an idea of inspired thoughts that the music makes me think of Bring Me The Horizon is a good example but just not quite close enough for me to be happy with, but each song has its own little moment where you look up and think “does that sound like…?” and then you add in some ridiculous suggestion like Billie Eilish or even Static-X. See! That doesn’t sound right, does it? But these overtones are there, and they will change for each listener and I think this is a testament to the band and their writing skill, where each listener will get something different and almost as if the album was written just for them.
There are 10 songs to whet your appetite, which are wide-ranging like a tapas restaurant menu. Plenty of meat to get your head to nod and there is more than enough soulful pop for you to swing your thing all over the place but is equally a vocal anthem for those who want to kick about in their undies singing in to a hairbrush, or any other clothing attire and choice of mic is entirely yours. As a seasoned metalhead, I guess what I’m saying is that I can hear the nuances they have clearly thought about in this album. How they want to pull in fans from all corners of the metal community and even further afield, showcasing sounds that have the hallmarks of Nu-Metal and how that genre helped bring in other listeners of music to the fold, this is doing the same albeit it isn’t a Nu-metal band or sound, merely a comparison to the likes of what Linkin Park did in terms of genre inclusion and getting their sound out to more than just the metal-heads, more recently BMTH and Enter Shikari who have a diverse fan base but don’t take my panic writing as gospel.
As you can clearly read, I have managed to fudge my thoughts on the matter and found it very difficult how to articulate my expression of this band and their new album. Perhaps I should have led with, “it’s fuckin’ good!” It’s all over the place in terms of genre but who cares, as alluded to before, just enjoy and swing your thing.
(4 / 5)
