Every Time I Die - Low Teens

It’s usually not unreasonable for people to dislike bands. Be it peer pressure from friends, bad experiences inexplicably tied to certain music or simple discrepancies in taste, in our individualist 21st century existence, it’s pretty established that you are allowed to like and dislike what you choose and to do so to whatever degree you see fit – OK?

Except if you dislike Every Time I Die you’re just so hideously wrong.

In the worlds of hardcore, metal, rock and general human experience, there are very few bands with such a flawless legacy as Buffalo’s finest. Whilst each album differs in its tone and delivery, sheer class has never not been a constant, and with ‘Low Teens,’ the ninth release of their near twenty year career, this has never been more apparent.

Opening proceedings with an uneasy ‘Era Vulgaris’-era QOTSA tinged riff, ‘Fear and Trembling’ commences the album with an off kilter start. Keith Buckley roars atop the band’s brutal mire, sounding more vital than ever (the lyrics themselves penned as a means of release whilst his wife and newborn daughter were hospitalised and seriously ill). ‘Glitches’ harks back to the untenable, immediate ferocity of 2005’s ‘Gutter Phenomenon’, whilst ‘C++ (Love Will Get You Killed)’ sees their more melodic tendencies exhibited – setting the stage for one of Buckley’s most captivating vocal performances to date. ‘Two Summers’ draws heavily on the more ‘badass’ end of their back catalogue, its Southern rock stylings culminating into one of guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andy Williams’ most defining riffs; imbued with so much slinkiness that it would surely make a certain Mr. Homme green with envy.

‘Awful Lot’ and ‘I Didn’t Want To Join Your Stupid Cult…’ both sit at the heavier end of the spectrum, the former sharing a great deal of similarity with the grindcore tinged sludge of ‘Remission’-era Mastodon, whilst the latter is simply thrash as hell, its constant embellishments demonstrating the musical proficiency and chemistry ETID share. Far less heavy but no less riffy, ‘It Remembers’ truly stands out as one of the greatest full bodied songs that the band have ever written, its simplistic yet elephantine guitar work perfectly complimenting the infectious vocal hooks and mesmerising performances of Buckley and Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie.

As the album enters its second half, the music shows no sign of tiring but rather intensifies even further. ‘Petal’ sees an updated visitation of the mathcore stylings of 2003’s ‘Hot Damn,’ whilst lead single ‘The Coin Has A Say’ perfectly showcases an accumulation of all of the brutality, melody and freneticism that define this album, and does so whilst being perhaps the greatest employment of Williams and Buckley’s faculty in the art of the riff to date. Following on from the simplistic, hulking grooves of ‘Religion Of Speed,’ ‘Just As Real But Not As Brightly Lit’ and ‘1977’ both compete to be the album’s angriest track, engaging in an arms race of speed, blood-blister-inducing drum fills and pure aggression - leaving you with a heightened heartbeat and a near psychopathic grin as the closer is finally reached. More melodic whilst seeing no respite from the pace established beforehand, ‘Map Change’ sees ETID at their most emotional. The song turns through savage breakdowns and chicken-picked guitar riffs, but the chorus will stand as one of the band’s greatest achievements so far, its epic scope and touching melancholia converging in Buckley’s incredible vocal melody.

As an album, ‘Low Teens’ successfully draws on every aspect of Every Time I Die’s back catalogue whilst sounding as fresh and original as ever. Though less frenetic than its predecessor (2013’s ‘From Parts Unknown…’), it feels more focussed whilst it simultaneously embraces more variation, and it feels heavier than ever. Despite its lack of a Kurt Ballou production job, this album sounds like Every Time I Die at their most raw, the inimitable riffs of Williams and Buckley, the exceptional tightness and technicality of Davison and Micciche’s rhythm section and what can quite safely be described as Keith Buckley’s career defining vocal performance helping to consolidate the fact that there are very few bands who will ever come this close to perfection. It is for this reason that Every Time I Die deserve to only have the highest of praises sung about them, and frankly anyone who does otherwise is either lying or just completely deluded.