Album Review: Every Time I Die - New Junk Aesthetic

In the months leading up to the release of their fifth studio album, Every Time I Die had promised their doting fans that ‘New Junk Aesthetic’ would see the band go back to their roots, revaluating and reinventing the heavier sound that saw their first three albums become so successful. Hardcore fans that had hoped this would be true will be excited to know that the band was not over-exaggerating…at all!

Buffalo’s finest are a strange type of band, masters of the controlled chaos which is manifested clearly in this album with songs, ‘The Marvelous Slut’ and ‘For The Record’ providing a frenzy of layered guitar tracks and razor sharp vocals while ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘White Smoke’ are almost certain to become fan-favourites due to the sheer colossal choruses and hooks wrapped in an intensity unmatched by any other bands, with the voice of ETID’s, Keith Buckley screaming the clever and poetic, ‘If life is pointless, then point taken, say amen.’

‘Organ Grinder’ sees the band show off the southern grooves from previous albums while still keeping the in your face ferocity and grinding musimanship very much in tact. Leading the album greatly onto ‘Host Disorder’, which stands out as the song that contains the most actual singing (as all the other songs are pretty much full of throat-aching shouts) all the while still containing a certain amount of violent commotion and vicious drumming to keep it in tune with the rest of the album. 

‘The Sweet Life’ is a stand out track with one of the catchiest choruses on the entire album, which helps the song deliver a gargantuan hit through the speakers with a perfectly timed arrangement and a creative flow.

The brilliantly named ‘Goddamn Kids These Days’ ends the album off fiercely with a clever swagger with ‘we deserve to be moved by more than force alone’ being one of the best lines on the album, capturing the feelings of the world today.

At times, Every Time I Die tend to sound like the incoherent rant of a mad man on a mission, but they do it so flawlessly and with great control that you can’t help but stop and admire their courage to create such brutal lyrics, a heavy and yet still groove-orientated wave of hooks and a willingness to expose people and parts of the world for what they are. ‘New Junk Aesthetic’ is aggression personified and will surely see them continue on the path of success.

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- Amy Parker