ALBUM REVIEW: Afterglow – Rising Insane
German metalcore titans RISING INSANE are well known for their technical approach to modern metalcore, with an emotive twist seen in bands from ARCHITECTS to THE PLOT IN YOU. However, the band refuse to pair down the raw dominion of the cut-throat heaviness to get this message across, and in doing so have created their third studio album Afterglow.
These Schierbrok bruisers burst onto the scene in 2017 with their formative and curious Nation, but are better known for 2019’s colossal Porcelain which flew them into the limelight and brought a lot of surrounding pressure for a much-anticipated third full-length. Afterglow is the carefully rendered and long awaited result of a world in lockdown, and is the best version of RISING INSANE we have seen yet.
Title track and album opener Afterglow serves as the delectable first taste of the 43 minutes to follow. Leaning on a pained narrative highlighting the circling and spiralling of post traumatic stress disorder, we are made aware that this album is an internal battle worn proudly on the sleeve of vocalist Aaron Steineker.
Rife with foreboding fade outs, throbbing guitar work and restless riffs that plummet like submarines into the deep blue and rise like concords, Afterglow is alive. Lyrically concerning grief, loss and feigning mental health, the album bluntly throws the ideas into the air for the listener to posit their own thoughts in the silence between tracks. Flightless Bird toys with feelings of helplessness, whilst Broken Homes eloquently uses metaphor to poetically address the yearning to leave one’s own mind.
First and foremost this album is about loss, whether it be loss of control, loss of family and friends, or eventually loss of self. Dealing with this subject matter delicately within such steamrolling music is no simple feat, but RISING INSANE carefully select the moments at which they address the different shades of loss, and the grief therein, painting a frenetic yet cohesive picture of personal experience.
Where Afterglow shines is in its unparalleled education in pacing and storytelling, underpinned by incredibly mixed drums and attention grabbing moments where Steineker’s scream-raps some glancing bars on Afterglow and the verses of The Surface.
Serenade hits with the glorious refrain of “I try, I try, I really try, to keep you keep you off my mind” before blowing out into a thumping melodic breakdown, carrying a consistently powerful rhythm throughout the track. Closer Imprisoned is a synth-led pop-metal track that heaves with tensity and clean melodies (found both on string and in voice). Thematically it comes full circle to the title track’s musings on PTSD and delicately ties a knot in the album, promising there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The breadth of the group’s talent within metalcore is unparalleled, but it is when they begin to create and innovate that they become impossible to ignore. Only when RISING INSANE are injecting novel ideas into their vast metal are they furthering their expeditious rise in not only the German metalcore scene, but far beyond those borders.
Although there is an evident reliance on modern successful metalcore bands (e.g. ARCHITECTS, POLARIS and DAYSEEKER) as both musical and visual influences on Afterglow, there is a brisk and fervent feel to this album, one that makes RISING INSANE‘s star shine far brighter than it did on Porcelain. Sustaining cogent technicality and intuitive pacing alongside overwhelming guitar breaks is not a simple task. RISING INSANE are archetypes of modern metalcore, but if they continue to push themselves outside their respective comfort zones as musicians and creatives, and tap further into the personality each member brings to the band as a whole, they will capture the world.
Rating: 7/10
Afterglow is out now via Long Branch Records.
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