Vein.fm follow up their exciting Errorzone with the erratic and bifurcated This World Is Going To Ruin You.
One of the biggest up-and-comers in core, Vein.fm built a sizable following off the strength of their debut in 2018. Errorzone utilized the element of surprise to constantly reinvent itself across its twenty-eight minutes. Highlights like “Doomtech” and the title track demonstrated acute attention to detail and small flairs to set the band apart.
In 2020, vocalist Anthony DiDio and drummer Matt Wood created alternative band Fleshwater along with DiDio‘s girlfriend. This Deftones-influenced style also shows its head in moments across This World Is Going To Ruin You to exciting effect and brings forth an element to their sound that only appeared in brief moments in the past. Given all this momentum, the band embarks on their sophomore release with high expectations across the board.
Welcome home,
The party’s dead, and you are the host,
Stunted growth, hang up your skin on the bedpost.
Lead single “The Killing Womb” sets an aggressive and nihilistic tone, which certainly plays to the album title. After an industrial and nu-metal driven start in “Welcome Home”, this track hits the reset button. In particular, it shifts towards chaotic metalcore with a noteworthy amount of energy. Many ideas are packed into its brief runtime, which also can be said for the entire album. Subsequently, “Versus Wyoming” unleashes another change up to near-screamo, but appreciably louder. Not even five minutes have passed at this point, but we already have whiplash.
This part where I say “We’ll figure it out,”
How the universe had to plagiarize,
My draft on “This World…”,
Now realized.
Geoff Rickly of Thursday makes a surprising appearance on second single “Fear in Non Fiction”. His disarming chorus may not suit all listeners, and arguably sounds tacked on at first. However, it molds increasingly well with the backing instrumentation as it continues, creating yet another dynamic to an absolute bender of a track. On the whole, the first five tracks to This World Is Going To Ruin You imply a devastating cacophony of assertive, mathy hardcore at its center. Yet, on “Wherever You Are”, it suddenly stops. Immediately apparent that it’s the album’s turning point, the volume and intensity are suddenly turned down. The general vibe remains ominous, but this time, it lurks beneath rather than showing its teeth.
“Magazine Beach” clearly picks up where Fleshwater left off, and leaves the listener with a similar feeling to that 2020 demo: wanting more. Instead, “Inside Design” returns us to where we had started off. If the album has a weak spot, it can be found here. It almost feels like denial of instant gratification, given they’ve already shown their hand with the previous two tracks. Even so, it’s still an impressive full-frontal assault when taken on its own merit. “Hellnight”, with a cameo from Jeff Smith of Jeromes Dream, shows signs of drifting back to the more interesting material teased, and “Orgy in the Morgue” closes with cautious ambiance to set the stage for the album’s final segment.
Come find me
Bring yourself back to birth
Shed the blood of the in-between
In this womb of wombs
“Wavery” fully commits to the more alternative metal sound while still retaining Vein.fm‘s edge. While just one of many flairs on Errorzone, here it appears as one of many main attractions. It also segues into the almost painfully slow “Funeral Sound”. While it may be regarded as a strange choice given the album’s opening, it acts as a necessary place of decompression.
Pack your bags,
We’re taking off.
No turning back,
We are all gone.
Accordingly, many of This World Is Going To Ruin You‘s faces appear for one final send-off. Those who came for the pure brutality of its onset may certainly leave disappointed. With that being said, it points towards an exciting new piece of Vein.fm‘s overall body of work. That this band can pull off so many different styles while retaining thematic integrity, and the most exciting moments of the album are the unexpected, the surprising, and the wholly new.
9/10
This World Is Going To Ruin You comes out Friday, March 4 on Closed Casket Activities and Nuclear Blast. You can pre-order it here.