ALBUM REVIEW: Of Days Renewed… – Magnitude

To Whatever Fateful End is probably the best straight edge hardcore record of the past five years – if not longer. The 2019 debut full-length from North Carolina’s MAGNITUDE may have borrowed pretty heavily from the efforts of 90s legends like STRAIN and STRIFE and TRIAL, but it also did so in such a fresh and urgent way that it set the five-piece up as something of the new gold standard for every hardcore kid drawing an X on their hand. In the four years since, the band have taken their clear-headed anthems all over the world, and now they’re back with a set of eight new ones in the form of their sophomore album Of Days Renewed….

As much as the title, and indeed the press notes, may speak to a new energy in the MAGNITUDE camp, it feels fair to say the approach hasn’t changed that much here. The band still have a big swaggering 90s-indebted style, with thick chunky grooves and high-energy two-step parts remaining the most fundamental elements of their sound. The mix is lively and spacious too – the kind where you can hear and even feel where everything sits as opposed to that more excessively dialled in approach of some modern metallic hardcore bands. That isn’t to say the band aren’t tight though; if anything the way that you can hear each instrument as its own entity even as it locks into the wider whole only makes the overall experience all the more powerful.

Vocalist Russell Bussey remains a particularly recognisable stand-out too; his shouty style is perhaps the most polarising feature of the band’s sound, but no-one can deny his ability to pen some absolutely massive mic-grab hooks like the simple “I still believe” in third track Through Trials, or “I long to be set free and feel beyond despair” in Beyond Despair which follows. Lines like these point to one of the overarching themes of Of Days Renewed…, the idea of commitment to self and finding a way through life’s struggles without being ignorant to just how hard that can be. It’s prime and maybe even standard straight edge fare, but the message is timeless and in MAGNITUDE’s hands it remains deeply impactful and motivational.

Notably the band have also skipped the interludes this time around. While not a problem at all on the last album, the way that MAGNITUDE just tear from A to B with no real respite here only heightens the urgency of the record. It’s all over in less than 20 minutes, the album coming to a close with its suitably climactic title track. The message here is simple enough, a dream “of days renewed” turned into a repeated mantra that grows into a huge gang vocal shout-along that will no doubt incite an onstage pile-on to rival that of the To Whatever Fateful End fan favourite Defy.

MAGNITUDE were already one of the best straight edge hardcore bands in the world, and Of Days Renewed… backs that up with power and conviction. It may not be a huge departure from To Whatever Fateful End, but it hits just as hard if not a little harder and ultimately puts the band at two for two in terms of classic straight edge full-lengths, not to mention the similarly essential demo and EP which preceded them. It’s an impressive legacy already, and one that will one day see them remembered as fondly as any of their most obvious influences and indeed many of the best to ever bear the X.

Rating: 8/10

Of Days Renewed… is set for release on September 15th via Triple B Records.

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