ALBUM REVIEW: Outcry – Never Ending Game
From the city that’s given us the legendary likes of NEGATIVE APPROACH and COLD AS LIFE, NEVER ENDING GAME have been proudly flying the flag for Detroit’s notoriously high-aggro brand of hardcore ever since the release of their 2018 break-out EP Welcome To The…. Doubling down in 2019 with their debut full-length Just Another Day, and then again in 2021 with the Halo & Wings EP – both for the ever dependable Triple B Records – the quintet have built a considerable reputation for themselves over the past five years, and they’ve got plenty of eyes on them as they gear up to release their sophomore full-length Outcry.
With 11 tracks stretched across a reasonably fulsome 31 minutes, Outcry delivers first and foremost as expected. As the opening one-two of the title track and early single Never Die is quick to establish, it majors most of all on massive, chugging riffs, earth-shattering breakdowns and big gang shouts backing up vocalist Mikey Petroski’s gruff bark. On one level it’s not going to win any prizes for reinventing the wheel, but at the same time it’s delivered with such force and intensity, and with such a beefy production courtesy of Andy Nelson, that the band never struggle to knock the wind right out of you. This holds true for the entire record, with later tracks like Fire Of The Heart and Clown managing to hit just as hard as these early blows with ease.
Perhaps more importantly though, and as some may have an inkling of already, there is actually more going on here than heavy/metallic hardcore’s most standard tropes alone. Particularly with recent single Tank On E, the band hinted at more overtly melodic and even classic metal influences, with that track placed fifth overall here and providing a rousing highlight in the process. While not completely out of the blue when one considers a couple of cuts from some of their previous efforts, this relatively new string to their bow is used far more regularly here, finding its mark especially in the harmonised leads, pummelling double kicks and epic guitar solo of third track Down There (With You), the slow melodic heft of Goin’ Thru Some Things, and the moody Cemetery Gates-isms of closer Something Wrong.
This expansion in sound serves NEVER ENDING GAME really well on Outcry. It makes for a more varied and ultimately more interesting listen than 20-odd minutes of chugs and breakdowns alone, and crucially the band mostly do a good job of weaving these extra influences directly into the bruising hardcore sound they’ve had nailed since day one, rather than haphazardly jumping from one style to the next with each track. The aforementioned Goin’ Thru Some Things and the single Memories which immediately follows it are both brilliant examples, each boasting tight and punishing riffs and grooves that hit with all the more force thanks to the contrast provided by the more melodic elements which surround them.
To put the brakes on just a little though, no-one is saying that NEVER ENDING GAME are the first to do this. They may have pushed their sound out a bit here, but they’re still essentially operating in that tried and true middle ground between metal and hardcore that should probably be called metalcore but often isn’t due to the different connotations of that term. What is without question however is that Outcry is an absolute monster of a record. It’s definitely an evolution in sound for NEVER ENDING GAME as a band, one that delivers on the brute force and aggression that made them such a hot prospect already, while doing so with a little more nuance and variation that will only add to their enviable and hard-earned momentum.
Rating: 8/10
Outcry is set for release on May 12th via Triple B Records.
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