ALBUM REVIEW: Heavy Steps – Comeback Kid

If there’s one thing you can count on when it comes to COMEBACK KID, it’s their knack for straight-up ragers. For two decades now, the Canadian five-piece have repeatedly delivered on a dependably high-octane brand of hardcore punk. Their latest album, Heavy Steps, is no exception. Arriving more than four years after 2017’s critically-acclaimed Outsider, it’s their seventh full-length, and their second with Nuclear Blast Records. True to form, it’s an album of intense forward momentum, and another worthy addition to a rock solid back catalogue.

As is their expressed aim for Heavy Steps, COMEBACK KID hit the ground running with the album’s opening title track and No Easy Way Out which follows it. Both released in advance as singles, they set a high tempo – and standard – for the record to follow. Gang vocals, metallic riffing, swaggering breakdowns… it’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but you’ll hear no complaints from us when the execution is this good. It’s a course the band stick to throughout Heavy Steps, delivering 11 high-aggro anthems with few frills or fancies. No song tops three and a half minutes either, with the overall effect one of considerable, pressing urgency.

Just as Outsider’s lead single Absolute saw the band find an unlikely collaborator in Devin Townsend, this record features another interesting guest spot in the form of GOJIRA’s Joe Duplantier. The Frenchman lends his talents to fourth track Crossed, and unsurprisingly, it’s a total beast. His bellowed backing vocals add a thunder to the band’s metallic attack, while the riffs themselves hit with the kind of sledgehammer force we’ve long come to expect from Duplantier’s regular gig. Everything Relates which follows also features a guest, this one perhaps a more obvious fit in DEEZ NUTS’ JJ Peters. The track itself is a more straightforward rager, but it still features arguably the record’s most memorably anthemic chorus.

Over 20 years into their career, it’s impressive that COMEBACK KID sound as sharp as they do on Heavy Steps. Vocalist Andrew Neufeld is particularly fired up, his lyrics and delivery routinely brimming with world-beating defiance and determination. The production also helps capture the band in all their furious glory. Handled jointly by John Paul Peters, who recorded the band’s 2003 debut Turn It Around, and the seemingly omnipresent Will Putney, everything sounds great here. Loren Legare’s drums feel particularly massive, while the guitars and bass all cut through with crisp metallic clarity.

All this ensures that Heavy Steps maintains its powerful force right until the very end. COMEBACK KID don’t mix things up all that much here, but truth be told they don’t need to. Sixth track Dead On The Fence stands out as another chug-heavy monster, while In Between provides a later highlight with a particularly crushing breakdown. A 32-minute runtime is a wise choice too, with the album ending long before it loses its listener’s attention.

All told, Heavy Steps is another top quality record by a band from whom we’ve come to expect nothing less. Two decades haven’t dulled COMEBACK KID’s raw power in the slightest, and if anything they’re at the top of their game. At this rate, it feels as though the Canadians could have another 20 years in them yet, and even if that is getting ahead of ourselves a little, it’s hard not to marvel at another veteran hardcore band who are very much in the prime of their lives.

Rating: 8/10

Heavy Steps is set for release on January 21st via Nuclear Blast Records.

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