Fit For An Autopsy – The Nothing That Is
Release Date: 25th October 2024
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Deathcore
FFO: Thy Art is Murder, Shadow of Intent, Angelmaker.
Review By: Trina Julian Edwards
On October 25th, New Jersey deathcore favorites Fit For An Autopsy are back with their eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2022’s highly acclaimed Oh, What the Future Holds. The album was the first of the band’s six full-length releases to reach the Top 25 of the Billboard 200, making it a hard act to follow. One might expect the band to follow the formula that brought them to the current peak of commercial success; however, they’ve continued to evolve with The Nothing That Is. The album features vocalist Joe Badolato, guitarists Will Putney, Patrick Sheridan, and Tim Howley, bassist Peter Spinazola, and drummer Josean Orta. Putney also served as the producer, utilizing his own Graphic Nature Audio studio.
Further developing their intricate sound while staying true to the underlying foundation, Fit For An Autopsy come at us with plenty of brutality, technicality, and melody. However, does it live up to Oh, What the Future Holds? It was my album of the year for 2022, so I have been excited, but also sort of dreading The Nothing That Is, because I want it to be great. So, will I be pleased or disappointed? Let’s find out.
Hostage is the first single off the album, and as it’s very reminiscent of the style of Oh, What the Future Holds, I’m extremely optimistic. The doom-laden verses start off at a ponderous pace, adding more layers and becoming more oppressive, before the dynamics lift and push the track forward. The pummeling rhythm along with the techy leads are typical Fit For An Autopsy, as is the incredible the movement in this track. There’s a lot happening, but it never gets muddled or overwhelming because there’s so much melody holding it all down. The nihilistic lyrics fit the overall aesthetic, and it sets a nice, moody tone that is echoed in the vocals.
“Heavy is the stone of sorrow…” around the 42-second mark is our first taste of the cleans interspersed throughout the album. I make no bones about my views on cleans in deathcore, but Joe Bad and Phil Bozeman are the exceptions that prove the rule. The layering of those gorgeous cleans with Joe’s harsh vocals is perfect, and that soaring chorus not only has excellent phrasing, but it’s also beautiful without giving me the saccharine vibes I get from a lot of modern metalcore. We saw a fair amount of cleans on Oh, What the Future Holds, and they’re not unknown on previous albums, such as in the title track on The Sea of Tragic Beasts and Black Mammoth from The Great Collapse, among others. So this is nothing new for the band, but they’ve been utilizing the cleans to greater effect with each release. I’m also on board with these higher pitched screams, which add even more texture to the vocals. Likewise, I appreciate the reference to the previous album in the lyrics, “we have seen what the future holds…,” foreshadowing the themes in store for us.
Spoils of the Horde is an atmospheric powerhouse that’s quick, technical, and unexpectedly groovy. I love the Viking war horn in the intro, followed by symphonic elements that lead to the verse. The rhythm and the leads are all very precise, and there’s some great Spheres of Madness era Decapitated-type riffing. The chorus is quite groovy but somehow menacing, rather Lamb of God-like. We get a bit of clean singing when the tempo drops, but the melody is off-kilter and disquieting, very unlike the cleans in the first two singles, which seem almost ethereal in comparison. The solo increases the pace again, but then it bottoms out around 3:02 with all the heaviness my deathcore-loving self had hoped for. Joe goes full-on demonic here, growling, “all glory to the fires that never burn out…” and the track ends with a return to that spine-tingling war horn.
The opening of Savior of None / Ashes of All is like being swept off your feet into deeper water than you were expecting. There’s lots of glorious speed, but it’s also very precise and beautifully melodic without losing its intensity. We have some excellent At the Gates style-riffs throughout, and it’s no surprise they’ve pulled this off, considering their excellent cover of Under a Serpent Sun from last year’s Aggression Sessions. Joe’s screams on the verses are diabolical, his diction is impressive, and the screech on “Savior of none / Ashes of all” around the 3:58 mark is superlative. The clean vocals in the chorus were quite a bit higher than I anticipated, but with the slower tempo driven by Orta’s percussive skills, it’s quite dramatic, and the lyrics are striking:
“It’s buried deep inside
The curse of ever-fall
A black halo torn from the sky
Savior of none / Ashes of all”
Per usual, there’s a hell of a lot going on, and also per usual, it’s super heavy without getting muddy. The composition has the feel of Pandora from Oh, What the Future Holds—aggressive as hell but also extremely lively.
The Weaker Wolves is one of the shorter tracks, coming in at just over three minutes, but it absolutely makes the most of them. Orta keeps the driving rhythm pounding away, really driving home the narrative of “the weaker wolves” being hunted down and running for their lives. The pace drops dramatically at the chorus and there’s a creepy, spoken word section that put me in mind of the spoken passages Randy Blythe does so well. The pace begins to increase and Joe switches it up, yelling in defiance, before going back to the lower harsh vocals. This has an aggressive, overtly hostile atmosphere with some super weighty riffs but also some nice, melodic hooks. I suspect this will be a favorite in their live sets, and good luck in the pits, friends. This track has a chip on it’s shoulder that dares you to come knock it off.
Next up is Red Horizon and wow. It has a sparse intro with lovely clean guitar tones, leading to slower verse, but it’s ridiculously heavy. The guitars are beautifully layered to provide enough movement to drag all of that ballast. The track increases in speed and intensity at the end of the verse, and then we hit that chorus like a ton of bricks. The cleans here are straight metalcore, but I got more of a Polaris vibe as opposed to say, Miss May I, and it’s an intriguing juxtaposition considering the brutality of the rest of the music, as well as the distressing lyrical themes. And holy smoke is this breakdown going to send people out of their minds. This is old school fire with Joe’s nasty-ass gutturals, and it’s one of the best I’ve heard in a long time. It’s strategically placed to draw attention to the narrative at this juncture: “The bodies burned so bright that God closed his eyes…” Despite the metalcore cleans, they’re not about to let you forget they’re a deathcore band at heart. They repeat the lyrics, “The bodies burned so bright that God closed his eyes…” with the harsh vocals layered with the cleans, and I literally got chills.
The Nothing That Is has a similar intro to Red Horizon with clean guitar tones, but it drops into the fury of the verse much more quickly. The guitars are very speedy and techy, with more of the mathematical precision they’ve demonstrated throughout the album. There are some legato cleans in the chorus, but as we’ve seen, they’re very organic and not at all forced. I also really like how the chugs follow the cadence of the vocals. I didn’t expect the solo before the final pre-chorus, but you won’t hear me cry about it. I feel like guitar solos are having a resurgence in core music, and I’m all for it. The lyrics are bleak, focusing on the end of humankind, and the breakdown at the end is a suitably massive accompaniment to the end of life as we know it.
Lurch also has a slower intro, but unlike the previous two tracks, the pace remains on the slower side throughout the verse, not unlike The Man That I Was Not from the previous release. The legato cleans here are ethereal and haunting, perfectly in keeping with the fatalistic lyrical themes. The chorus is a beast, ushering in the heavier and faster sections that seem to explode into existence. It ultimately returns to the slower pace, becoming increasingly more oppressive through the end of the track.
Lower Purpose is the third single off the album, and it feels like a throwback to their work from the late teens. It seems weightier, if you will, and the rhythm is furious and relentless. This track of about as subtle as a hammer. The melodies are unexpected and a little jarring, with the guitars sliding down the scale and dropping off, but this only serves to draw attention to the unsettling lyrical themes:
“I am the product of my fucking environment
The gold-standard of visceral hate
An ever-flowing stream of misery and violence…”
There are no cleans in this track, which will please the purists, but Joe channels his inner Marilyn Manson in the sung/spoken chorus, “you serve a lower purpose…”. There’s a deranged little fragmentary solo interjected at around 3:10 that also fits the narrative. Joe is hitting it out of the park with these guttural growls, and the chugging guitars lead him out, rebellious to the end.
One of my favorites is Lust for the Severed Head, another of the shorter tracks on the album. The galloping rhythms and techy leads propel this track through a number of tempo changes—from a more mid-tempo groove to a full-on race to the end of each measure. The pace drops at the chorus, and it gets even heavier and more menacing. The tuning sounds ridiculously low, and I love that evil slide down the scale. The slower-paced sections are brutal, with the most gruesome vocals, and it’s giving off old school death metal vibes. There’s a completely chaotic solo at around the 2:30, joined by a harmonizing guitar, and it totally reminds me of the over-the-top solos from the 80s.
As final tracks go, they couldn’t have chosen a better ending than The Silver Sun. The intro has the same kind of feel as The Man That I Was Not, but that similarity ends there. The effects on the guitar and vocals in that first verse is very 90s alternative, and if that wasn’t enough, there are some spectacular bluesy 80s hair metal-type leads that come out of nowhere. The harmonizing cleans are fantastic and Joe has really outdone himself with the vocals here. There are some slow, grungy chugs pulling us forward until the track takes off like a rocket. The momentum drops again at the chorus, and we return to the almost otherworldly vocal lines. The melodic leads are dark and ominous, amping up the feeling of impending doom permeating this track. The outro is stark and desolate in its haunting refrain, “When it all went silent…” with only Joe’s vocal line and solo piano, and the ending that never resolves is the cherry on top. Outstanding composition. I couldn’t love this more if I tried.
Overall, The Nothing That Is is a worthy successor to Oh, What the Future Holds. As I mentioned in the beginning, I was skeptical of the band’s ability to top their previous efforts. Well, if they didn’t top it, at the very least, they matched it. They’ve done a masterful job of continuing to evolve without burning their bridges and alienating long-time fans. This is no small feat considering you really can’t even call this deathcore anymore. Post-deathcore, maybe? If that’s not already a thing, Fit For An Autopsy has made it one. Their musicianship continues to impress me, becoming more technical, even a little proggy in spots, but never losing an ounce of heaviness. Joe Badolato’s vocals couldn’t be better. There’s no denying he’s one of the best in the scene, and he’s at the height of his powers here.
The production is stellar, no surprise, and through my headphones, the instruments and vocals are perfectly balanced and sit just right in the mix. This record is dark, bleak, and downright sad in places. As an OG goth girl, I highly approve of their melancholy metal arc. Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s still brutal as hell, but there are some intriguing elements here that give The Nothing That Is more dimension than your typical modern deathcore fare. This is the perfect time of year for this record, and with the world as crazy as it is these days, the nihilist in me is embracing my fate with an extraordinary soundtrack.
(5 / 5)
