“A beating heart just isn’t enough.“
In the last twenty years or so, few bands in the metalcore scene have been around and managed to stay as widely popular as Blessthefall. Starting in 2004, the band quickly gained traction over the next two years before releasing their debut album, His Last Walk, in 2006. However, in 2007, they would experience a brief setback when their vocalist, Craig Mabbit, left to join Escape the Fate. This ultimately forced their keyboardist, Jared Warth, to take over vocals on tour. This would prove to be short-lived, however, as Beau Bokan would join in 2008, undertaking all clean vocal duties from that point on. Blessthefall subsequently released their scene classic, Witness, in 2009 and continued their ever-growing popularity at a pace that perhaps even they themselves thought impossible. Over the next couple of years, the band would continue their ascent up the metalcore sphere with Awakening. Their seminal 2013 album, Hollow Bodies, saw their already heavy brand of metalcore reach a level that firmly placed them in the upper echelon of the genre. Nonetheless, Blessthefall presented a slight relapse in quality in 2015 with To Those Left Behind, due to a rather tired presence throughout the album. Attempting to turn things around, Hard Feelings arrived in 2017, which largely abandoned their signature brand of metalcore in favor of a more relaxed post-hardcore sound. After their headlining tour in 2019, Blessthefall entered an indefinite hiatus before eventually announcing their return in 2023, which brings us to their newest cut, Gallows.
Gallows sees Blessthefall come back swinging into modern metalcore with a renewed energy for the genre. While a lot of their previous work frequently traded off mellow elements with heavy sections, Gallows sees the band taking on a heavy-first approach while still retaining the choruses that helped make them an influential act in the first place.
Right off the bat, we get a wonderful look at the rekindled passion Blessthefall has for metalcore with the opening song, “Mallxcore“. We are immediately treated to an opening barrage of pummeling riffs that set the stage for the energy that Gallows carries throughout its runtime. The succeeding song, “Wake The Dead“, sees the already frenetic heaviness dialed up even further with increased speed that adds fascinating energy to the fast-paced vocal oscillation between piercing screams and luscious cleans that serve to show that Blessthefall has completely regained the infectious passion that initially made them so appealing. Even the first mostly clean-sung song on the album, “Somebody Else“, has a spirited breakdown that shows off how much fun the band is having making music again.
While the overarching focus of Gallows is a renewed passion for the heavier side of the band’s sound, the more radio-focused songs contained within have a fresh sense of vigor as well. Structurally, “Light The Flame” is the record’s primary octanecore song. Following a brief fade-in, the track begins on a breakdown before quickly switching to a clean-sung verse before eventually switching back into another breakdown at the midway point. What sets this track apart from its counterparts is Blessthefall‘s passion for the music they write. This energy is at the forefront, even on the more radio-friendly compositions. The vocals remain energetic, whilst the instrumentals are sustainably strong. “Fell So Hard, Felt So Right“, which also has a feature from Dan Marsala of Story of the Year, subverts expectations by managing to fit in a meaty breakdown to supplement the song’s otherwise mellow nature, in a way that few other radio-adjacent tracks tend to have.
While Gallows by and large is an impressive return to form for Blessthefall, it would have been nice to see the band venture out a bit from their traditional formula and write a couple of songs without clean vocals and instead focus solely on Jared Warth‘s screams. While Beau Bokan‘s cleans never intrude on the heaviness or overall cohesiveness of the tracks, it would have helped to drive home the heaviness of it even more by having a song or two that focused solely on that aspect.
Gallows is not just a strong return to the sound that made Blessthefall the titans of metalcore that they are today; it shows that you don’t necessarily need to write a record full of songs that sound completely different from one another to keep the listener’s attention. All that’s required is to exude passion for the music you write in every facet.
8/10
Gallows releases September 5 via Rise Records, and you can pre-order it here.