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There are, to reduce things to a binary, two kinds of extreme music. One of those bludgeons you, suffocating you in a barrage of low-iq blasts until your brain is smooth and your neanderthalic itches have been scratched. The other delights in exercising your brain with seemingly impossible riffs, drum patterns and time signatures to the point that you begin to wonder if it’s even possible for humans to make this noise. Sometimes, you get both of those mixed together in a pot so baffling, so destructive that you don’t even know how to process it. Enter, ORTHODOX.
ORTHODOX are not a band you put on to relax. To simply put them under the same metalcore umbrella as bands like BURY TOMORROW and WE CAME AS ROMANS does nothing to hint at their sonic profile. A wide eye white knuckle combination of CHAMBER, THE ACACIA STRAIN and VATICAN blended with elements of technical death metal and elements that hark back to more basic hardcore, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Couple their influences with an incredibly talented group of musicians and you have a band who (in a move that must be on purpose) are the polar opposite of their name. The band’s last full-length, Learning To Dissolve cemented their status as one of the most vital bands in the scene today, being an incendiary nailbomb of sounds ranging from scathing, piercing guitar parts to breakdowns that would shake the horn from a Rhino’s head. This meant that ahead of new release A Door Left Open that the anticipation and hype was greater than ever before.
It has to be said that in today’s modern heavy music scene, Austin Evans is one of the most talented, forward thinking guitar players around and it’s his work that elevates this record from being good to great, especially when you consider he writes upside down and as a left handed guitar player. Comparable perhaps only to KNOCKED LOOSE‘s Isaac Hale in the way he is reworking the framework of what metalcore guitars can be, his riffs, patterns and edge that he brings is phenomenal.
Opener Can You Save Me kicks the album off in hellacious fashion. Adam Easterling‘s intimidating, bug eyed bark is a perfect accompaniment to the aural napalm being generated by the band, and he sounds the best and most deranged he ever has. Producer extraordinaire Randy LeBouef (known for his work with JESUS PIECE and DYING WISH) also needs his flowers for making this record sound as massive as possible. Tracks like Dread Weight and Blend In With The Weak (featuring one of the other great modern metalcore vocalists in BOUNDARIES‘ Matt McDougal) lurch and rattle along like a murderers breath in your ear, making you want to batter a civilian as much as hide in a corner peeking through your fingers.
It’s this combination of technical acumen, unshackled barbarian vocals and a desire to inflict as much aural punishment as possible that makes this record so much fun. There isn’t a wasted second and you have to give it to the band for creating a record that genuinely will make even the meekest soul want to stand up and fight their demons bareknuckle. There’s enough variety in the songs to keep you interested the whole way through and for those who have perhaps forsaken KUBLAI KHAN TX, there’s more than enough caveman style, unga bunga stupidity mixed in amongst the ludicrous musicianship, not least on Step Inside and the ending of Commit To Consequence (Which features COMEBACK KID‘s Andrew Neufeld) which is one of the most knuckle dragging pieces of music released this year.
It will take a lot to dethrone A Door Left Open as the heaviest record of the year in the ‘core space and there’s a good chance that none will come close. Sit back, close your eyes and let this white hot blast of a band at the apex of their game fill your ears with baffling brutality.
Rating: 9/10
A Door Left Open is out now via Century Media Records.
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The post ALBUM REVIEW: A Door Left Open – Orthodox appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
