‘House Of Cards,’ the ninth album from Australian-founded metalcore crew The Amity Affliction marks a new era for the band. Last year, founding bassist/clean vocalist Ahren Stringer bitterly departed. It’s resulted in a legal dispute between Stringer and lead vocalist Joel Birch. Nevertheless, with incoming bassist and vocalist Jonathan Reeves (Kingdom of Giants) joining Birch, guitarist and producer Dan Brown, and drummer Joe Longobardi, The Amity Affliction return with another ferocious collection.
On the surface, ‘House of Cards’ thematically leans into the reliable trope of grief, rage, and trauma, with the latter being a key thread throughout. Following 2023’s ‘Not Without My Ghosts,’ Birch’s mother passed away. Having experienced neglect and abuse alongside his siblings, ‘House of Cards’ allows Joel to reflect and unpack the effect his mum had on him. Furthermore, Birch lost a close friend to cancer, adding to the emotional weight that he serves up.
As the cinematic introduction of ‘Vida Nueva’ segues into ‘Kickboxer,’ an unrelenting blast of scattergun metalcore that roars with venomous emotion arrives. It’s here Birch introduces religious connotations into ‘House of Cards” traumatic fabric. His unhinged voice screams, “I can’t live my life forever, waiting, no holy spirit will ever save me.” While Longobardi’s muscular double pedalling blast beats fight for attention.
Reeves’ vocal introduction comes on the title track. Although he feels at home, filling the clean vocal void left by Stringer, you can’t help but feel his delivery is somewhat monotone and lacks emotional depth. Thankfully, Birch’s growling provides the track with some sense of energy. Meanwhile, Brown’s sharp guitars and Longobardi’s explosive drums further elevate it. Reeves fares better later on ‘Break These Chains’. His use of melody almost feels playful and is a contrast to the dense verses. However, it also falls victim to the expected TAA formula.
Throughout their career, TAA have perfected the emotionally heavy metalcore sound almost to a tee. The structure of heavy verses with towering melodic choruses continues to be relied upon. It results in tracks such as ‘Heaven Sent’ and ‘Bleed’ coming off routine. While they flourish with intensity, the latter utilises ill-fitting, synthetic sampled vocals.
Even though ‘House of Cards’ suffers from expected song structures, it thrives on the musical weight on show. As you can probably guess, Joe Longobardi’s domineering drum work carries the workload throughout. While Brown’s djent-esque riffs in places offer depth to the hefty onslaught. As a unit, TAA can be consistently punishing (see ‘Reap What You Sow’), providing a musical cohesiveness. Whereas the themes of grief, trauma, and religion provide a heavy lyrical anchor. As always, Birch’s words are equally cathartic and defiant, nowhere more so on the final track, ‘Eternal War’. Monumentally ending the record, it sees TAA sounding as heavy as ever, with hypnotic guitars and a rumbling rhythm section. While Birch repeatedly screams, “No peace, just pain”.
After nine albums into their career, bands of The Amity Affliction‘s ilk aren’t expected to completely reinvent themselves. ‘House Of Cards’ does show glimpses of this with ruthless flashes, yet overall frustrates more than it delivers. It might be a new chapter, and while it’ll please die-hard fans, those wanting some sign of progression are sure to be disappointed.
‘House of Cards’ by The Amity Affliction is released on April 24th on Pure Noise Records.
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