“I never knew I was never going to see you again.”
Emoviolence-centric mathcore is, by all accounts, an acquired taste, even for those who would claim affinity with screamo. Panic-filled polyrhythmic dissonance and reckless shouts are its bread and butter, and this sometimes devolves into sensory overload rather quickly. We seem to hear this a lot in the age of ever-increasing ADHD, but less is certainly more regarding this partition of emo. Any pretentious hipster with missing octaves and FL Studio could make noise (as Karen deems it), which is where the technicalities of mathy structure compensate and permeate a sense of controlled chaos.
Who else should it be, but Stefan Iglesias of bottom surgery, Coma Witch, A Year In Black & White, and Crippling Alcoholism, that makes up a solo emoviolence mathcore project that’s paradoxically graceful and disharmonious? Boston Dynamics may have let a few of its cyborgs escape. Iglesias, despite a busy year with several other acts, released a slew of singles under the name dogxdays in late 2025. Right off the bat in 2026, his pace has only hastened. A Year In Black, wrought with raw vehemence, is a phenomenal debut from dogxdays and further asserts Boston’s positional dominance as a powerhouse for the underground scene.
Every aspect of A Year In Black is effectively self-contradicting. True to emoviolence’s default template, the instrumentals are a transient Pandora’s box of sonic switchblades that sacrifice neither bite nor bark. As mentioned, this would be an otherwise cumbersome audible lashing, to the point of exclusively piquing the interest of those with a hardened constitution for mud walls of incongruent sound. Yet the integration of mathcore ensures attentiveness from start to finish, even when A Year In Black dials back and contains the musical beast. Going from the scatterbrain triad of “Morning”, “Flight”, and “Swamp” to the softer, more progressive sections of “Confirmation” further solidifies A Year In Black’s penchant for dualistic continuance, and that alone will keep the undivided attention of many in comparison to a more unilateral approach to emo-math.
Lyrically, A Year In Black is just as gripping in personal sentiment. Loss, wistfulness, resentment, and unattainable companionship surround this EP in a chasm of melancholy. What Iglesias pulls off on a mellifluous scale is matched by his unrestrained bellows of frustration and further reinforced by knowing when to oscillate in demeanor. A Year In Black truly is a staple showcase of throwing antithetical elements together and producing a cohesive result at every level of production.
Speaking on mixing, some may find the engineering too abrasive at times, even as A Year In Black’s discordant iterations speed by. However, this embodies emoviolence’s mold to a tee, proggy math backdrops notwithstanding. Most will fully embrace this disorderly style of production, some will labor, and fewer will balk. Whatever the case, Iglesias, if anything else from the perspective of those who may not jive with A Year In Black as much as others, should at least resign themselves to acknowledging the integrity in adhering to what emo-math truly stands for.
A Year In Black is a triumphant inverse of an inverse. It’s jumbled to the point of almost inadvertently regulating itself, even when its mathy underpinnings aren’t considered. When Iglesias’ tempo shifts and methodical means of scaling become forthright, this is all too clear. There are plenty of mysticisms, stereotypes, and even more opinions surrounding emoviolence, and that much cannot be refuted. In spite of this, mathcore may have been the necessary oil for emoviolence’s water. Nothing about this amalgamation of sound should make any sense, and perhaps that’s the foremost reason it works as well as it does for doxdays’ debut effort.
8/10
A Year In Black has been independently released as of January 11 and is now available on all major streaming platforms.