After gutting the band and coming back with a new lineup for a 2023 EP and 2024’s No Name Graves, the founder and guitarist Wyatt McLaughlin, sort of reinvented TLTSOL into a moodier, more down-tempo, and I dare I say, menacing take on deathcore, having more in common with Bound In Fear. Helped largely by new vocalist Tyler Beam.
Well, with the jump from Unique Leader Records to Metal Blade, I wondered if the band would retain the darker, more intensely moody sound with a shiny new, bigger label, or if they would rein things in.
Other than Tyler Beam occasionally breaking from his menacing below into a semi-shouted/sung vocal style, they have not reined things in.
This is still very dark, moody, lumbering deathcore that, along with the Bound In Fear comparison, or Whitechapel’s more restrained efforts, sometimes comes across like a much heftier, heavier, and slower A Life Once Lost with its lurching, semi-djenty riffs.
First off, the production is just disgusting. Carson Slovak and Grant McFarland at Atrium Audio (ERRA, Sign of the Swarm, August Burns Red) have rendered a downtuned, monster of an album. According to the promo, some of it was achieved by “a six-string baritone Viper from ESP-LTD tuned to Drop F, the same tuning used on the band’s 2012 Warpath EP. To elevate the intensity, the band also used an Earthquaker Devices Sunn O))) and Keeley Octa Psi drop tune pedal on certain sections”. I’ll let you musician types decode that in your own time….. the rest of you, trust me- it’s HEAVY.
I mean, the likes of “Stiletto”, with its subtle orchestration (which also appears on “1-800 Do You Want to Die), “Stereo”, “Dollar to a Dime”, “Corruption Concerto”, and “XXXXXXXXXX” make the album’s back half utterly devastating. The front end has a couple of bangers too in “Sewer Rat” and creepy “Freak Reflection”.
Admittedly, there’s little variation in the head bobbing, lumbering throes, as the album barely breaks its loping pace for its entirety. And the guest vocal spots from David Simonich of Signs Of The Swarm, on “Make it to Heaven”, Nate Johnson (ex-Fit For An Autopsy) on “Rat Trap, Alan Grnja of Distant on “Dollar to A Dime”, and “XXXXXXXXXX” which features original TLTSOL vocalist Storm Strope don’t really register or stand out.
