Necrotica Chapter I: Bursting at the Seams

If there’s anything I can say about Every Time I Die’s debut right off the bat, it’s this: the band doesn’t make you wait. Last Night in Town immediately unleashes a flurry of piss and vinegar with the chaotic “Emergency Broadcast Syndrome”, a song that serves as a perfect thesis statement for the record to follow. Explosive screamed vocals from frontman Keith Buckley are met with instrumental work that’s equal parts brutal and technical, with the result sounding pretty similar to The Dillinger Escape Plan’s landmark release Calculating Infinity at times. Essentially, what you get here is a fusion of the confessional and cathartic lyrics of screamo with the calculated and complex rhythms of mathcore; excellent stuff.

For the most part, these elements extend to the rest of Last Night in Town. I certainly have to commend the musicians for displaying a high level of skill throughout the record while maintaining such energy at the same time. There’s some pretty intricate stuff going on here, whether it’s the dissonant guitar stabs that pervade the majority of “Jimmy Tango’s Method” or the ADD-riddled grooves and chugs of “Punch-Drunk Punk Rock Romance”. Jordan Buckley and Andrew Williams have excellent chemistry with their guitar parts, sounding interlocked and deliberate even in the most unhinged moments of the album. Keith Buckley, meanwhile, shreds his vocal chords relentlessly throughout the whole thing; there’s not a ton of variety in his vocal work here, but he still compliments the intensity of the music nicely. However, my favorite moment on the album vocally is the middle section of “Here’s Lookin’ at You”. Buckley drops the screams and goes for downtrodden clean vocals, giving the song a much more somber and even foreboding atmosphere.

Speaking of variation, we also get a few interludes and atmospheric moments here and there to let the listener breathe. Not that these moments are full-on respites, as they maintain the same dark and unsettling atmosphere; “Enter Without Knocking and Notify the Police” is a dissonant instrumental that conveys a sense of dread with just a few chord progressions (and an off-kilter rhythm), while the outro of “Nothing Dreadful Ever Happens” is a melancholic piano piece that lets one reflect on the craziness that just ensued throughout the rest of the song. Unfortunately, there’s still not enough variation on the record. After a while, much of Last Night in Town becomes a blur of math-y time signatures and heavy grooves, with not a whole lot tying it all together. More moments like “Enter Without Knocking…” should have been placed within the heavier tracks to give them more diversity. But with how the songs are now, the entire album is cranked up to 11 and doesn’t let up nearly enough to let you take in your surroundings.

Still, I think I know what Every Time I Die were going for with their debut. A lot of metalcore bands tend to go as hard as possible on their first records before expanding stylistically down the line, and I get the sense that this is the case with Last Night in Town. It’s the sound of a band trying to prove themselves with an embryonic-yet-impressive first showing, and as a first attempt, they succeeded in a hell of a lot of places. The musicianship is fantastic, the energy is electric, and the atmosphere is often chilling. Last Night in Town may be flawed, but it’s one hell of a start for these guys.