The Amity Affliction

Our actions ripple over time. It can take months or even years to feel the impact of the choices we make. These days, the aftershocks of blessthefall’s music reverberate louder than ever before. Following a decade-plus highlighted by fan favorite albums and countless sold out shows, the Arizona quartet— Beau Bokan [vocals], Eric Lambert [guitar], Jared Warth [bass], and Elliott Gruenberg [guitar]—have only fortified an unbreakable connection with audiences worldwide.

Returning from a four-year period of dormancy, they strengthen this bond like never before with a series of singles for Rise Records and their forthcoming seventh full-length LP.

“On social media, I don’t post anything about the band, but I will see fans talking about us,” notes Beau. “It’s been years, and it blows me away that they’re still interested and they’ve been influenced by our music in a positive way. So, our comeback is for them.”

blessthefall’s music has continued to resonate. The group notched back-to-back Top 25 debuts on the Billboard 200 with Hollow Bodies [2013] and To Those Left Behind [2015], while 2018’s Hard Feelings marked their third straight Top 5 bow on the Top Alternative Albums Chart. With the latter, Unclear claimed the band “may have struck serious gold,” while Alternative Press applauded how “blessthefall blend old-school vibes and a fresh new sound.” Speaking to their enduring legacy, they’ve racked up hundreds of millions of streams with “Hey Baby, Here’s That Song You Wanted” at 33.8 million Spotify streams followed by “Hollow Bodies” at 26.2 million Spotify streams in addition to landing syncs in franchises such as Splinter Cell.

In the wake of a successful 10-year anniversary tour to celebrate Witness in 2019, blessthefall went quiet for the next two years. Between the Global Pandemic and various other gigs, the members still kept the lines of communication open.

“We had just burnt out to a degree,” admits Beau. “We took some time off, stepped away, and started chatting. We’d always kept in touch, but it got to a point where we really missed what we had. We were watching the younger generation take an interest in our band and other groups we came up with, which was cool to see. If you’re passionate about anything, you can’t totally give it up—you’ve got to do it in some fashion. There were multiple things at play, and we finally began writing again.”

As the musicians kicked around ideas, the first single “Wake The Dead” materialized. It steamrolls out of the gate with a pummeling riff, battering ram drums, and ominous electronics. Beau’s screams bleed into a bold refrain, “What will you do when your world stops turning? Do you really want to wake the dead?”

“I love how it kicks in and melts your face off from the get-go,” he smiles. “It’s the general mood of our comeback. There’s no fucking around and we’re having a good time. We’ve been sleeping for five years since we put out new music. ‘Wake The Dead’ conveys the message, ‘Hey, we’re back with a vengeance’. We recaptured the energy of the band, and it reflects how we are on stage—all energy.”

In the end, blessthefall’s energy will never relent as they ignite this chapter.

“We’ve seen life after the band, and we’re coming back to it because we miss it and love it,” he leaves off. “I never took this for granted. The band gave me an opportunity to live my dream. Making music is something special. You can’t get that feeling doing anything else.”

What got out of Orthodox’s A Door Left Open was a capital M Monolithic Metal record, which accomplished its goal of approximating the dread one would feel coming home to a door ajar. The lack of subgenres attached to the overarching weight doesn’t mean there weren’t influences from heavy music’s history, rather that attempting to sum it up would be a hyphenated mess as chaotic as opener “Can You Save Me?” and far less pointed and poignant than the album-ending monologue making up the middle section of closer ‘Will You Hate Me?” Between the album’s poles—start-and-stop metallic hardcore ala Converge and relative calm, almost post-metal-esque diversity (see what we mean about those hyphens?)—the Nashville/Columbus based quintet have made nu feel new again.

It’s at the apex of the densest elements of innovative subgenres like nu metal and metalcore, both which added aggression to softening metals, that Orthodox craft their own take on “The Heaviest Matter of the Universe.” Similar to peers like Knocked Loose, Harms Way and Jesus Piece, the band mutate metal’s most groovy elements into a molten alloy as scalding as it is dense. (That they’re joined by Matt McDougal, Andrew Neufeld and Brann Dailor on guest vocals only adds to the oomph.) In the case of Orthodox, call it “Dread Weight” after the track of the same name, and be prepared to be crushed—as many have through tours with the likes of The Acacia Strain, Stick To Your Guns, Boundaries, Dying Wish and more.

From the floor to a massive stage, from hardcore to metal, and everything in between, Orthodox have built a name on fervent, visceral live shows. With their most blunt album, both lyrically and musically, the wrecking ball that is Orthodox is coming to shatter expectations and minds of fans of metal and hardcore alike. Their powerful alloy ensures it doesn’t matter if there was, ahem, A Door Left Open or not, with their latest album, they’ve kicked theirs off its hinges—if not turned it into dust.