Welcome to the Boolin Tunes Staff Spotlight, a special segment on the site in which we dive deep into a classic or simply personally beloved album to shine a light on releases that we feel deserve a second glance. This is the first of a special two-part Staff Spotlight feature this week, for the second part on the group’s 2016 follow-up album Treehouse, click here.
The electronicore wave of the late ’00s/early ’10s was certainly… something. Young metalcore bands of the era more and more started utilizing the iconically twinkly and cheap-sounding synthesizers of ’90s and early ’00s pop as a means to expand their sound and to, I suppose, be more ‘palatable’ to a wider audience. Its impact, however, has resulted more in lot of groups (and fans) of the era looking back without the rose-tinted scene-kid goggles and – understandably – cringing.
Of course, not every group under the ‘electronicore’ moniker took themselves super seriously at the time anyway, let alone looking back. Attack Attack! comes to mind as an example of this, with their image that of a group of goofball teenagers, simply having fun making music. Naturally, they too mostly abandoned the iconic electronicore sound they helped popularize as they grew, and before their demise in 2013. One such band of that wave weren’t so quick to give up, however.
I’ll admit, I may be a tad biased towards I See Stars. While their early releases have never done much for me, the album in question, 2013’s New Demons, was an incredibly seminal album for me in my youth. Releasing around the time I was weaning myself off of EDM and back into the harsher, heavier stuff I grew up around, it felt like the perfect meeting point between the two worlds I was crossing between at the time.
The first time I heard the absolute hype-building synths of “Ten Thousand Feet“, leading into its absolutely monstrous opening breakdown, I knew there was something special about I See Stars that I hadn’t quite found anywhere else – and that even rings true today. Now close to a decade ingrained in this music scene I still have yet to find a truly, quintessentially electronicore record that has quite the same spark to it that New Demons has, and certainly one that has aged quite as well as it.
I believe its production is a primary driving force around that. Feeling less like a cheap foray into electronica like many of the groups of the style had a tendency to devolve into, New Demons sounded big. It sounded professional, and more than anything else it felt like a tasteful culmination of the very best of each genre it pulled from. Top shelf metalcore riffing, gargantuan pop-centric hooks, tasteful and considered synth work – New Demons had it all. Much like many of the metalcore greats of the 2010s, the production was helmed by none other than Joey Sturgis, and even through his vast and storied discography, I believe the production on New Demons to be his finest work to date.
I don’t think this album could’ve come at any other time in their career, either. Starting the group as teenagers back in the late 2000s (with the ages of its members ranging from 13-17), they had a lot of growing pains in terms of songwriting chops and general musical maturity. That’s not to say it wasn’t impressive that a group of kids that young could make an album at all, let alone one that admittedly competent. However, listening back to 2009’s 3D or 2011’s End of the World Party, it’s clear to see that their potential still remained fairly untapped on those early releases. However, with New Demons it felt as if I See Stars had finally cracked the code, so to speak.
Mid-album track and second single “Murder Mitten“, to me, represents the group’s potential truly coming to life. A dense, heavy, and potently heartfelt tune, “Murder Mitten” is electronicore at its very best. With gorgeous piano work, glitchy EDM pads, chugging guitars and an insanely catching chorus to boot, it showcases the breadth and maturity of I See Stars’ sound on New Demons. It all feels like a culmination of all the group had been working towards since their inception.
The heartfelt, melodic sensibilities of “Murder Mitten” also manifest elsewhere across New Demons. Title track “New Demons” and late-album cut “Judith Rules” both feel similarly introspective and emotive. The latter of which seeming to be an ode to the group’s love of live music, performing for their fans and family every night, as well as being able to see their peers perform alongside them, with vocalists Devin Oliver and Zach Johnson chanting:
“I’ll jump until my legs give in
I’ll scream until there’s nothing left to say
The only faith I ever had in me
Was because you were singing“
As a juxtaposition, late album tracks “Boris The Animal” and “When I Say Jump, You Say How High” demonstrate the opposite end of I See Stars’ musical arsenal, seeing the group at potentially their heaviest to date. While there’s a natural tendency within metalcore to expect groups to ‘soften up’ a little over time, with New Demons, and these tracks in specific, I See Stars boldly state that they’re “not playing around” (“Filth Friends Unite“, 2012). That’s not to say that heaviness is a direct indicator of quality by any stretch, and in fact the more melody-centric parts of New Demons ring as the most memorable for me, but there’s this raw aggression across so much of this album that’s impossible to deny the efficacy of.
I could go on forever about my love for this album. Being one of the most important records in my life, I may be a smidge partial to it, but I firmly believe that to this day New Demons is the very best electronicore has to offer, an absolute staple of 2010s metalcore, and a must-listen for any fan of the genre. As an accompanying piece, Tim has penned a similarly glowing retrospective on I See Stars’ 2016 follow-up, Treehouse, which you can find here.
At last, I See Stars recently wrapped recording on their long-awaited sixth studio album, so make sure to keep it locked on Boolin Tunes for all the latest on the upcoming release, and metalcore in general. In any case, we’ll see you next Sunday for another retrospective from our team.