Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By The Amity Affliction, Roadrunner Records 2018.
The Amity Affliction have been around for some time but for some reason I didn’t pay them much attention until I heard their 2016 album, This Could Be Heartbreak, which was fantastic.
Misery is the follow-up and my initial listen suggests that it’s different from Heartbreak, but it should still do really well for them.
The band formed way back in 2003 in Gympie, Queensland, and over the years they’ve developed a solid fan base for their particular brand of hard rock that’s often referred to as metalcore.
This album was recorded in Baltimore with producer Matt Squire (Panic At The Disco, Ariana Grande) earlier this year and if anything, it’s a little more nuanced and a little less metal than their previous efforts.
All the usual Amity Affliction elements are there.
The twin vocals of Ahren Stringer and Joel Birch come to the fore on the track Holier Than Heaven, but feature strongly throughout the entire album and it’s still the band’s signature sound.
It’s an unusual technique to include a clean (Ahren) and distorted (Birch) vocal but it works remarkably well.
Birch’s screamed death metal contrasts with the often sweet tones of Ahren. It sounds strange, but they make it work to their advantage.
I feel that Misery has taken the band further into the territory of melodic pop than This Could Be Heartbreak which was harder and more moody, introspective, and melancholic, with Birch’s lyric influence being much more dominant.
I’m yet to decide if this is a positive step.
One thing that is still consistent is the bleakness in the lyrics.
Some tracks, like Black Cloud, could easily be from the sessions for the Heartbreak album but the overall impression that comes across on a first listen to Misery is that producer Matt Squire has attempted to soften their sound.
Having said this I still enjoyed the album and I’m sure that it will be snapped up by their fans.
