“Everything you are is fucking miserable.”
Standing out in the modern deathcore scene is, in itself, a seemingly rare achievement nowadays. With an ever-increasing crop of bands that often seem interested in chasing a sound that is more reminiscent of symphonic heavyweights Lorna Shore or Shadow of Intent, it’s becoming more scarce for a band in the deathcore scene to find their own sound like Spite has managed to. For most of their career thus far, Spite has been providing a satisfying blend of heavy deathcore mixed with bouncy nu metal riffs, which has garnered them a large following that has only grown over time. With albums such as Nothing is Beautiful and Dedication to Flesh, Spite has consistently provided listeners with satisfyingly brutal experiences. Today, however, Spite seeks to step out into a new realm with their latest album, New World Killer.
New World Killer sees Spite cutting out the plentiful nu metal elements that have been a mainstay on many of their albums and instead focuses solely on groove and heaviness to provide an experience more aligned with deathcore albums from the early 2010s, rather than cramming too many extraneous elements that only dampen their sound’s effectiveness, like many of their peers are doing currently.
Throughout New World Killer, there are many examples of how the band has found a focus on writing a much more raw and groove-oriented deathcore record. However, one of the most notable instances of this ethos is contained on the opening track, “The Disaster“. Starting the track, we are treated to a slow churning onslaught of groovy riffs that ease us into a breakdown, starting things on a particularly heavy note that previous albums would have elicited a more subdued reaction from the listener due to extraneous elements that didn’t need to be there. While “The Disaster” is a good example of the band’s more refined approach on a slower song, mid-album song “Pledge” shows that even a faster, technically-oriented track benefits from Spite‘s new interest in focusing on a more raw, anthemic feel.
While most songs on New World Killer focus on injecting a chafed feel into the grooviness and heaviness in equal measure, the album as a whole is stronger when the songs concentrate on one end or the other of the sound spectrum. “Hand of the Reaper” sees the band mostly focusing on the groove end of their sound by providing a consistently speedy instrumental that maintains an infectiously anthemic groove that will no doubt keep the listener banging their head throughout its runtime, which only pure groove metal bands like Lamb of God can do with their songs. Those looking for an engaging example of how the raw and visceral feel of the album affects a track focusing more on heaviness, rather than groove, need to look no further than the late album track “Looking Glass”. This sees the band stripping out a lot of the groove of the album and focusing solely on heaviness by providing a never-ending barrage of down-tuned riffs that are punctuated only by a brief pause before transitioning into one of the heaviest breakdowns that Spite has ever performed.
While New World Killer as a whole has an entirely different feel to it than previous Spite albums, the band’s good intentions with the album are unfortunately let down by the fact that the song structures, by and large, stay the same for most of the runtime and contribute to an unfortunate sense of monotony. This diminishes the impact of what could have been the band’s most exciting album to date, which would have been the case if the album itself weren’t so structurally similar.
New World Killer is a breath of fresh air for one of the larger bands in modern deathcore. While they still have a way to go in terms of differentiating their song structures, New World Killer shows that if Spite continue to hone their craft, there may be a day when they become the biggest band in deathcore.
7/10
New World Killer releases on October 31st via Rise Records, and you can pre-order it here.