The last half a decades’ metalcore revival has been truly special, giving us a wave of bands that have given us both fresh and nostalgic spins on a pretty diverse genre. Now, Portland’s five-piece Dying Wish have given us their own tried and true take with their debut album Fragments of a Bitter Memory, and it’s a pretty relentless one at that. I’ll preface with one thing, this is a purely metalcore album through and through, as it accelerates from one blistering riff to the next crushing breakdown and back again. That’s absolutely not a bad thing since the band’s energy, particularly from vocalist Emma Boster, is by far the biggest appeal of this record, all evident in the lead single and title track.
Admittedly this single was the first time I’d heard Dying Wish, and what a solid first impression it was. The opening riff being backed by break-neck drumming immediately threw me back into the mid-2000’s peak of metalcore. Boster’s vocals sound particularly pained, understandably so as they’re covering the heavy topic of trauma from growing up with an abusive parent. Boster sounds consistently feral and furious throughout the whole 35-minute runtime of this record, she never lets up once. The highlight of this track for me is the chorus, which blends some punishingly rapid bursts of double kick with some haunting and reverberating melody to top it off. It really covers all bases this album has to offer, from the heavy to the melodic.
On the topic of heavy though, the first three tracks on this LP, are definitely that. The opening track “Cowards Feed“, “Cowards Bleed” is the obligatory opening breakdown fest at under 2 minutes (admittedly one of my favourite metalcore traditions). It wastes no time getting us ready for the fury this album brings, and it’s continued into the track “Hollowed by Affliction“. The guitar harmonies in the main riff are so satisfying, and I’m particularly obsessed the melodically sweet and sour riff that’s thrown at us around the last minute of the track, right before we’re thrown headfirst into another breakdown, which features a great guest spot from Tyler Norris of Wristmeetrazor. “Innate Thirst” just prolongs the pain that the band are so tirelessly presenting here, with a breakdown that is built up to with an extremely effective, if brief, spoken word passage, another tick on the checklist of my personal favourite metalcore routines.
“I’ll seal this message
With my blood and a bullet”
“Severing the Senses” makes for a good break after the relentless brutality of the first three tracks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty fucking heavy with some massive sounding double bass and guitar combo that almost has elements of some Gojira to it, but this is also the first track on the album to introduce singing into the mix. Bosters clean vocals sound just as heavy hearted as her screams, and even without them the guitars on the track fill the melodic void very nicely. If I had any complaints about this album though, I just wish there was a bit more of it. While the metalcore nostalgia in this album is executed brilliantly, but after the midway point of the album the constant flowing from one breakdown to the next starts to wear a little, particularly on cuts such as “Now You Rot“.
Either way, the heavy cuts like Until Mourning Comes still hit regularly, and I have to give special props to the duo “Blood Laced Misery” and “Enemies in Red“, two front-to-back brutal tracks that flow seamlessly into one another, creating a truly unforgiving 8 minutes of carnage. The latter track also has a blood curdling feature from Knocked Loose frontman Bryan Garris, who really never seems to miss on anything he’s on. The final cut on the album, “Drowning in the Silent Black“, is another great showcase of everything this album has to offer, from its heaviest moments to its lightest, it’s a moody and fitting end for such an emotionally charged album.
Fragments of a Bitter Memory is nothing ground-breaking for the metalcore genre, but that doesn’t really matter when it’s played so consistently and with such furiousness. While there are some more moody melodic moments that I wish the band explored more instead of some of the excess breakdowns here, this album is nothing if not an intro to one of the most vicious new bands in the metalcore scene right now. If you’re a fan of good, old-fashioned, limb-swinging metalcore, don’t give this one a miss.
8/10