“Put under dirt while the blood’s still warm.“
If there is one thing nu-metalcore outfit Orthodox have been since the very beginning, it is antinomically consistent. Since their inceptive 2013 record, End of My Wit, the Nashville-based quintet have maintained a dichotomous stride regarding their moniker. Devoutly constant in releasing new music; reverently irregular from the standpoint of sonic delivery. With five albums in twelve years, Orthodox continue to reinvent their patented nu-metalcore wheel with every iteration. On the aptly named A Door Left Open, Orthodox have unbarred their artistic veil for all to peer into.
With Orthodox, nuance becomes a bit more granular than what is otherwise observed in most cases. Sure, your eardrums will get beaten to an otitis media-riddled pulp. Yet across their discography, it’s been received in a derivative manner that tends to stylistically part from what was previously done. All of that is to say: if you were expecting something different this time around, chances are you’re either completely green to what Orthodox are about or have been holding on to unfounded—and perhaps misplaced—wishful thinking. This is hardly any cause for concern, however. It’s pretty damn clear that Orthodox possess a Swiss Army knife of adaptable constitution. On A Door Left Open, their wares are not only bereft of any signs of rust but are more versatile than ever.
The aforementioned audible drift aside, another pertinent element of A Door Left Open as opposed to previous releases from Orthodox is its raw structure. Paradoxically arranged, A Door Left Open has the mold of both a continuous thirty-three-minute beatdown and a collection of standalone bludgeoners. Seamless transitions heard in “Can You Save Me?” to “Body Chalk” and “Blend in with the Weak” to “Godless Grace” are prime examples of this uniform incongruity. Each track can be digested in a vacuum despite flowing into the other. By the same token, listeners may also just as easily consume these songs in aggregate.
This type of album anatomy—while potentially schismatic—makes for very significant replay value, even in partitions. If you aren’t overly privy to consuming A Door Left Open wholesale, each piece is uniquely written and allows those who’d rather not cross the boundaries of sensory overload to listen in episodic bursts. The brooding chugs, pinch harmonics, and crushing hardcore breakdowns of “Dread Weight”, “Keep Your Blessings”, and “Step Inside” are indicative of commonly found elements on A Door Left Open. In spite of that, the instrumental ingredients of this album are distinctively assembled on every song. For many modern attention spans, the ability to indulge in fragments is a fever dream that Orthodox have generously opened the entrance to on their latest outing, even if it might not align with everyone’s consumption preferences.
The production of A Door Left Open is just as equally impressive as its composition. With the expertise of the great and powerful Randy LeBoeuf (Kublai Khan TX, The Acacia Strain, Boundaries), vocalist Adam Easterling’s pissed-off pontifications and bassist Shiloh Krebs’ hammering hit with the force of a tactical nuke. It’s no secret that contemporary hardcore and nu-metalcore mixing has continued to win the hearts of even its most progenitive compatriots. For those that couldn’t get enough of the engineering on Death Is Little More and Step Into the Light, Orthodox has taken a page out of the modern mastering textbook to cement what is already a beautifully composited record. With songs such as “Searching for a Pulse” showing the prowess of low-tuned nu instrumentation, conventional wisdom points to this particular brand of production being the gold standard for a long time to come as more artists integrate it into their sound.
A Door Left Open is a resounding Venn diagram intersecting a vast swath of influences. The obvious standout shades of The Acacia Strain and Slipknot are as omnipresent as ever. Yet just as modulated as how A Door Left Open is put together, Orthodox have clearly found inspiration from additional sources this time around. Proponents of Joe Duplantier’s signature pick slides and scrapes will be left salivating by the time the opening seconds of A Door Left Open pass. Guitarists Austin Evans and Ben Touchberry provide steadfast odes to Gojira from top to bottom on this LP. Equally apparent, there are also floods of Meshuggah-like poly riffs and fills—by virtue of drummer Mike White—sprinkled throughout.
Transcendent of just about every era of nu, progressive, and hardcore metal, one can’t help but feel Orthodox have specially tailored A Door Left Open to a much wider audience than previously intended. Scene idealists will find something to revel in. Whether it be “Sacred Place”, “One Less Body”, “Commit to Consequence”, or “Will You Hate Me?”, everything from ambient post-metal prog to tech-death hardcore shine through.
A Door Left Open may very well end up being the most suitably named album by year’s end. Orthodox, as mentioned, have always given us something irrefutably new with each release. In the case of A Door Left Open, this mainly boils down to production style, influence, and the anomalous way in which it is constructed. While the latter aspect may be a bit divisive amongst those that favor a collection of singles over a seemingly constant track, and vice versa, Orthodox have nonetheless created their magnum opus. Between those that come back to listen and even those that may only do it once, the door, as implied by the album’s title, has been invitingly left ajar for anyone that wishes to walk through.
8/10
A Door Left Open releases on June 6 via Century Media Records and you can pre-order it here.