If
I am notorious for anything, it is most likely procrastinating for untold
amounts of time before following through on people’s recommendations. Just like
with Modest Mouse, for years, the name Every Time I Die was tossed relentlessly
in my direction. Countless conversations ended with promises of “I’ll look them
up when I get home,” shortly followed by apparent memory loss on my part. It
wasn’t until my girlfriend’s tattoo artist spent an entire session shuffling
their discography that I actually got to hear Every Time I Die, but by the end
of that hour, I knew I had to delve deeper. With only a few days’ hesitation, I
grabbed a copy of Gutter Phenomenon
and popped it into my car, to find I understood this act exactly as much as
everyone told me I would.
With
a band name as ostensibly metal as Every Time I Die, music that showcases
intensity is an absolute must, and these five musicians do not disappoint.
Guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andrew Williams race through heavy melodies and
distorted chord progressions, smashing metal grittiness together with
rock’n’roll feels that call to mind acts like Black Sabbath and Motörhead.[1] As Jordan reveals in an
interview with PureGrainAudio, the
band’s infatuation with their rock forefathers is thorough, so much so that the
album’s name is a callback to the genre’s beginnings, when the public saw rock
as music made “just for losers” that “appealed to the lowest of the low.”[2]
The
chugging and squealing guitars may dominate the mix, but only because drummer
Ratboy and bassist Kevin Falk (a Between the Buried & Me alumnus)[3] create a searing rhythmic
foundation. On Gutter Phenomenon,
Every Time I Die rips through hardcore punk tempos like they only have seconds
left to live, attacking each note so thoroughly that you can practically hear
the blisters forming on their fingers. Attach to this madness the piercing
vocals of Keith Buckley, who grows like a possessed lion into his microphone,
and the result is an almost sickeningly heavy sound that shatters the eardrums.
Without
doubt, the music on Gutter Phenomenon
writhes around like a serpent with its head cut off. The instrumentation is
dripping with energy, a fact partially driven by the composition of the music.
According to Jordan, the band strives to write riffs that are “not catchier,
but harder to forget.”[4] The band explores pretty
complex territory, swimming in syncopation during “Pretty Dirty” and messing
with time signatures in “Bored Stiff,” yet they manage to rip through each piece
with absolute intensity. As Jordan puts it, the band’s philosophy is simple:
“We’re going to be playing these songs every day…so let’s write songs we’re
never gonna get sick of playing.”[5] Every Time I Die commits
fully to making music they truly care about, and while much of their songs
tread the same worn metalcore territory almost ad nauseum, they load their
performances with fury, fun, and true honesty.
Although
Gutter Phenomenon has its fair share
of break downs, screeching minor second chords, and guttural screaming, Every
Time I Die manages to break up the monotony of a genre running dry by leaning
on older influences. Much of their guitar riffs are built around pentatonic and
blues scales that call back to the days of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, and no
song captures more rock’n’roll than “The New Black.” Instead of chugs, the
instrumentation revolves around a wild guitar riff reminiscent of rock’s heyday.
Both guitarists squeeze in trebly solos, and Ratboy even tastefully applies a
cowbell. Similarly, Keith Buckley focuses on singing far more than screaming,
and although his voice isn’t the most controlled, he really lays into his
catchy chorus lines: “Everything I do is wrong / But by God I do it right.”[6] With “The New Black,”
Every Time I Die takes the feel of 70’s rock music and applies a tasteful coat
of contemporary metal to the finish, calling back to the greats while
maintaining the band’s own signature grittiness.
The
package that Every Time I Die presents is very tight and thorough, but
remarkably, one of their greatest strengths is also their weakest link. Lead
singer and lyricist Keith Buckley perfectly embodies the metal frontman, and
his screaming voice is full and dark, as if he has demons raging in his lungs.
But where his heavy vocals reign, his singing voice is severely lacking, and he
applies it far too often for its own good. As his melodic parts in “Guitarredand Feathered” and “Apocalypse Now and Then” show, he has an exceedingly hard
time staying on pitch, and thus invites more wincing than applause.
In
a similar vein, Keith has a wonderful grasp on creating compelling images and
applying poetic principles to his lyrics, but the myriad random scene changes
in each song leave the overall pieces completely disjointed. With lines like
“We drew a crowd / The crowd drew blood” from “Champing at the Bit,” it is
obvious that Keith can wield his pen thoughtfully, but in the same song he
jumps between completely unrelated images, moving from “the tide is swelling
and we’ve fallen asleep on the shore” to “someone’s yelling fire in the
theater.”[7]
Although
Keith’s overload of disconnected images leaves a lot of Gutter Phenomenon feeling unevolved, in “L’Astronaut,” he actually manages
to impart a larger theme through the song. Amid changing time signatures and
grindcore guitar, Keith paints a scene of a decorated soldier returning from
war. His first lines depict the hero’s praise in a safe return, to which he
replies humbly: “Honestly, it was nothing / We should all just thank God I’m
alive.” Keith then dives beneath this modest façade, digging into the quiet
trauma of PTSD; with lines like “I’ve got a 21 gun salute playing over and over
and over in my head” and “I’m on call to be somewhere / Somewhere I’m not,”[8] Keith graciously hints at
the permanent mental scars so many veterans carry with them long after the
fight is over. In his own fragmented manner, Keith effectively describes a
hero’s return to his country while taking into consideration the damage war can
do to a soldier, turning “L’Astronaut” into a deft treatment of a narrative
that has been all-too-familiar for the past decade.
After
spinning Gutter Phenomenon for the
past two months, I am pleased to state that the music of Every Time I Die is
everything they said it would be. Their riffs rock hard and heavy in a way most
metal no longer dares, and their unbridled energetic performance is as
infectious as influenza. But most potent in their music is the band’s honesty—each
guttural scream and snare smash drips with a truth that is wholly Every Time I
Die. Gutter Phenomenon captures the
genuine imprint of these five musicians, humming a tone of honesty that rings
above all else, and in my opinion, that alone makes this record worth experiencing.
Tunes to Check Out:
1) Gloom and How It Gets That Way
2) L'Astronaut
3) Tusk and Temper
Tunes to Check Out:
1) Gloom and How It Gets That Way
2) L'Astronaut
3) Tusk and Temper
