ALBUM REVIEW: Collapse By Design – Sentinels
Metalcore is enjoying a purple patch as of late. After meandering its way through the early 2010s with a over-polished and regurgitative crop of bands with no real sense of identity, the latter years of the 2010s saw the genre recapture the same sense of metallic urgency of its heyday, and enough forward thinking ideas, to make it relevant and exciting again in the here and now. So come forth SENTINELS who intend to make a splash with debut offering Collapse By Design. But will this offering be nothing more than a drop in the ocean?
Abrasive, intimidating and utterly monstrous, Collapse By Design feels like the aural equivalent with encountering a Berserker in the first Gears of War game for the first time; the adrenaline soars and you feel like you are fighting for your life.
Opener Epitaph bulldozes in with a cacophony of distorted riffing and hefty chug, allowing Josh Hardiman to make his first strike with his powerful vocal commands. If Epitaph was just a glimpse into the heaviness then Inertia is the full picture. Subtle atmospherics intertwine with the blunt force of the band’s sound before the frenetic nature of Thomas Cardone and Chris Dombrowski‘s guitars showcase both their technicality as well as being unorthodox enough to capture your attention.
From there, SENTINELS keep the aural barrage coming with wave upon wave. Albatross is an obscenely heavy number with some truly earth-shattering breakdowns and Hardman dispatching guttural vocals blasts with the utmost ease, Desecration (Isolation) benefits from the undercurrent of melodic elements to help the band make a truly impactful connection and the final trio of Coalescence, Obsolete and Atlas is one hell of a good run and ends the record on a resounding high.
For as much as there are plenty of mosh-worthy moments across Collapse By Design‘s runtime (the breakdown in Comfort In Familiar Pain is particularly lethal), SENTINEL‘s greatest feat is the multitude of forward-thinking ideas they put into practise throughout the record’s swirling musical vortex. The dissonant and unorthodox guitarwork in Embers helps create an uneasy atmosphere, allowing the more straightforward passages of hefty riffing to hit all the more harder whereas the heavily atmospheric Solitude serves as a perfect bridge into the thumping Tyrant. It’s refreshing to experience these little divergences from the metalcore playbook, and whilst there is an air of familiarity, it’s intriguing enough to keep you hooked throughout the record’s runtime.
Collapse By Design won’t reinvent the rulebook but you get the feeling that was never SENTINELS‘ intent. Instead, the record presents itself as a precise and calculated slab of aural heaviness. With little room to breathe, the experience is exhilarating and establishes SENTINELS as a band poised to really make their mark.
Rating: 8/10
Collapse By Design is out now via SharpTone Records.
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