Reverance is a funny old thing. Too much, and you’re accused of having no original ideas and trying to achieve success by standing on the soldiers of giants. Too little, and you risk potentially missing the mark on what made bands of that ilk successful in the first place. Taking that into account when discussing the current revivalist trend in metalcore, it all boils down to execution. Bring your own ideas, some influences from outside the genre to the table but make sure that what you’re making can crowdkill on its own two feet.
As Dying Wish demonstrated on their 2021 debut, Fragments Of A Bitter Memory, they’re a band who have a great deal of love and respect for a certain brand of metallic hardcore, but enough nous and creativity to create a sound that was uniquely theirs. Every syllable was flecked with jet black venom, every drum beat sent a rumble through your bones and the guitars possess an ability to make your face look like you were walking through an anime convention during a deodorant shortage.
2022 and 2023 were massive for the band, they toured relentlessly and they began to showcase elements of their sound growing. Emma Boster developed from being a great screamer to a great vocalist, nurturing her cleans and melodies, incorporating them into existing tracks to great effect and providing a hint as to where their sonic profile would develop on what would become this record, Symptoms Of Survival. Combine this with lead guitarist Sam Reynolds adding his barbarian like vocals and stage presence to things and former Vatican bassist Jon Mackey’s antagonist behaviour to things and the band appear to only have an upward trajectory.
As the opening title track judders its way into life, the first thing you notice is the production, which comes courtesy of Randy Lebeouf. It manages to sound even bigger than before while still retaining the classic clunk and chug that makes this kind of metalcore so endearing. It’s a no-bullshit approach to opening the record that sets the tone, and when the pit-inducing drum opening of ‘Watch My Promise Die’ kicks in you’ll find your mosh sense twitching into overdrive, especially when Sam grunts and barks like a particularly pissed off drill sergeant. This is also the first time that Emma’s clean vocals and melodies really come to the fore. As hauntingly beautiful as they are memorable, she has a knack for addictive hooks. They aren’t overused though, and this album isn’t the band devolving into typical scream-verse/clean-chorus fare. Their sparsity makes them even more special when they do appear, such as ‘Torn From Your Silhouette’, whose hook is dangerously addictive.
“The guitars possess an ability to make your face look like you were walking through an anime convention during a deodorant shortage. ”
A criticism levelled at the band’s previous effort was that some tracks maybe went on for a little too long, but there’s none of that here; 5 of the tracks on show are under 2 and a half minutes and the longest is barely over 4 minutes long. The band know that they can do their best work in confined spaces and it definitely shows. Not a note is wasted and there’s very little, if any fat on the record, such as on the early one-two of ‘Starved’ and ‘Prey for Me’, which showcase some of the record’s heaviest, most crushing moments.
From riffs that sound like classic Darkest Hour and Unearth, to breakdowns and mosh parts that pay more than a small tithe to the altar of not only the bigger bands like Killswitch Engage, but newer contemporaries like Employed To Serve and The Acacia Strain, it all coalesces into something beautifully visceral. Lyrically, it’s a hard, catharsis ridden listen. When ‘Paved In Sorrow’, the slower, ballad-esque track gracefully floats into being, chills will flow across your flesh and the lump in your throat is prominent. It may even elicit a tear or two, such is it’s power and beauty.
‘Hell’s Final Blessing’ is the album’s scathing, brutal high point. Rarely has Emma sounded more visceral, her delivery going straight for the jugular accompanied by a gurn inducing series of squealing riffs and ear mangling breakdowns. ‘Lost In The Fall’, the final track, closes the album in devastating fashion, with some almost trad-metal guitars segueing into a finale whose towering chorus and piano driven, melancholic elements of the track really make it feel like a song from a movie soundtrack.
An almost perfect example of the current yet throwback style of metalcore, this will undoubtedly get the band onto bigger stages, win them more fans and solidify the group as one of the leaders of the pack as the heavier end metalcore enters a modern golden age. Sure, this won’t be the album to reinvent the genre or convert any naysayers, but you get the feeling that with the aggressive yet vulnerable subject matter, it will win over a whole new generation of metalcore fans.