ALBUM REVIEW: Radical – Every Time I Die
Five whole years. That’s how long we’ve had to wait for the ninth studio album from Buffalo hardcore legends EVERY TIME I DIE. It’s more than double any other gap between their records, so to say anticipation is high is a serious understatement. Finally though, Friday sees perhaps the best-loved hardcore band of the 21st century make their long-awaited return with Radical. Eager to make up for lost time, it’s their longest release yet, with 16 tracks spanning over 51 minutes. With it, the question on everyone’s minds is where do these veterans fit in the thriving hardcore landscape of 2021?
The answer is still right at the top. On Radical, ETID sound just as urgent, just as ferocious, and just as downright raucous as they ever have done. In a statement that should shock absolutely no-one, this album is a total rager. Singles like Post-Boredom and Colossal Wreck promised as much, but those are just the tip of the iceberg. Opener Dark Distance sees the band come out swinging, its monstrously pummelling riff leading into their typically full-throttle fare. It quickly sets the primary gear of the record, with the 15 tracks that follow it boasting innumerable riffs and breakdowns all delivered in the band’s trademark Southern-fried swagger. Producer Will Putney, who also handled the arguable career high of 2016’s Low Teens, absolutely nails it here too. He captures ETID at their biggest and beefiest best, the record’s crisp tone never obscuring the band’s characteristic scrappiness.
As they have done on previous records, ETID do flex more than just their heaviest muscles on Radical. In fact, it’s often the album’s more melodic and dynamic tracks which rank among its very finest. Thing With Feathers is a prime example, its gentle opening erupting into one of the album’s most melodic barnstormers. White Void is similarly sing-along ready, balancing its huge chorus with DEFTONES-esque breaks and the band’s own gold-standard savagery. Album closer We Go Together earns a mention too, its five-minute runtime and use of mellotron resulting in one of ETID’s longest and most progressive offerings to date.
Radical is by no means a one-man show, but it is hard to listen to this album without being completely enraptured by the inimitable Keith Buckley. Drawing fury from the all-too-recent memory of Donald Trump’s US presidency, the ETID frontman insists on his listeners’ constant, undivided attention – and gets it. From the politically-charged vitriol of Planet Shit (“Whose fucking side are you on?“), to the (un)apologetic aggro of ninth track Hostile Architecture, it’s impossible to look away. He provides plenty of hooks too – not least in the aforementioned Post-Boredom‘s repeated chants of “My annihilation!” – while tracks like Desperate Pleasures prove his knack for memorable sloganeering is as air-tight as ever (“The world made us sick/How can it heal us?”).
The more one listens to Radical, the more a central question starts to arise: is this ETID‘s finest work? Of course, the sheer strength of their discography means it would be a fool’s errand to try and provide any kind of objective answer to such a question, but at the same time it seems unlikely that anyone would raise an eyebrow if someone did claim this was their best record. Nine albums in, Radical carries on a form that arguably hasn’t dipped for two full decades now. Others may have taken shots at the crown in the years since Low Teens, but this record proves EVERY TIME I DIE won’t be giving up their throne any time soon.
Rating: 9/10
Radical is set for release on October 22nd via Epitaph Records.
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