The Breathing Method – After Everything Else

The Breathing Method – After Everything Else
Release Date:
24th January 2025
Label: Self-Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Alternative Rock, Grunge, Punk, Rock.
FFO: Therapy?, Nirvana, Stone Sour, Helmet.
Review By: Hillary Wisniewski

I am kicking off 2025 with my first review, and to get things rolling I decided to mix it up and go with something not in the metal realm. Yes, it’s Metal Epidemic; however, we do branch out now and again. As someone who was a teen when grunge surfaced, I was curious when I heard a track from The Breathing Method. These lads hail from Scotland, but more specifically the wild and wonderful western part of the country. After Everything Else is a debut album; however, this is not a group of young bucks who just started jamming several years ago. In fact, the origins of this band stretch back 25 years. Of this album, singer Scott Booth says “Our music is a mirror to our lives, infused with personal battles against anxiety and depression…It’s not clichéd to say that the struggles of daily existence and the courage needed to navigate life’s darkest corridors are common to so many. The album is a chart of our lives, how we were all involved with music in our formative years but gave it up to pursue careers and families and now this is us coming back to our first love. “

As far as reflecting the struggles of life, that is present both musically and lyrically. Many of the tracks boast aggressive, distorted, and forceful riffs. There is a certain sound and era that clearly impacted this crew, and they are successful in their mission to bring it forward into the present day. Lyrically there is an emotional vulnerability present which often teeters between reflections on what is the tumultuous nature of middle age as well as introspection of a more personal nature. Most of the tracks hold a raw energy which I suspect would lend itself well to a live show. A track that stood out to me is ‘Jupiter’ as it had a nice tone on the guitars, the structure flowed well, and the chorus was pretty hooky vocally and musically. 

Because there is such heavy influence of a pretty specific sound, this means that there isn’t really anything that stands out musically to me. It sounds like any number of bands I would have listened to during my early teen years in the 90s, so if you are looking for a unique spin on the grunge/alt-rock sound, you won’t find it here. Maybe you don’t care about a new take, and you just want to hear something that takes you back, and if that is the case you will be good to go. I can see why the band says this is for fans of Therapy? as I picked up on that vibe here and there, but I think it was a bit remiss not to include Nirvana in the list of FFO. These songs seem to draw a lot of influence from Cobain and crew. 

As mentioned previously, this album is full of emotions, and the press release stated it was essentially music therapy for the band. I am no stranger to how powerful music can be in terms of helping us cope with any number of life’s trials and tribulations, so I appreciate how this can be a method for people to work out their struggles. To me, it seemed somewhat like the chronicling of a midlife crisis of sorts, and although I am in my middle age years, this just was not something I felt I could connect with on an emotional level. That’s ok, though, we are all at different points in places in life, so what we cannot relate to today we might during another time. And if we never do, that is fine, too. No matter my thoughts and rating of this album, I do appreciate people following through with something they feel passionate about and making it happen. That’s more than most folks would be able to pull off.

3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5)

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