ALBUM REVIEW: What’s Left Unsaid – Foreign Hands
Metalcore is so back right now. Not the arena rock with tech metal riffs that has so often tried to pass for it over the past decade or so, we’re talking proper Trustkill stuff here: raw, emotive, visceral and, you know, with some actual ‘core’ influences in there too. Delaware’s FOREIGN HANDS have already earned themselves a place among the very best proponents of the sound in recent years – probably somewhere in a top three shared with the likes of DYING WISH and CAULDRON – and they’re still only just getting round to releasing a full-length. What’s Left Unsaid arrives to considerable hype this Friday, not least thanks to the support of SharpTone Records, and it proves the quintet are deserving of every ounce of it.
The elephant in the room then: there is an intentional element of throwback here which means that What’s Left Unsaid cannot escape comparisons to bands that have gone before like POISON THE WELL and MISERY SIGNALS and 7 ANGELS 7 PLAGUES – those last two highlighted particularly by a ferocious penultimate track guest spot from Matthew Mixon who played in the latter and guested frequently for the former – and even a hint of CAVE IN in some of the carnival-esque chromatic guitar runs in the likes of Resetting The Senses and especially lead single God Under Fingernails. More important however is that no such comparisons distract or detract from this album’s quality; FOREIGN HANDS know their history, they know what makes for great metalcore and they are really bloody good at doing it themselves.
Not that that’s particularly new information though. Fourth track Laceration Wings actually first appeared way back on their Summer ’18 Promo, and with a bit of a polish up to fit with the rest of proceedings it still stands out as an absolute beast that brings up the rear on a killer opening run that sees the chug-heavy A Memory In Latency sandwiched between the aforementioned Resetting The Senses and God Under Fingernails. In this first chunk of the record alone you’ll find many of the things FOREIGN HANDS do best – raging verses, soaring choruses and crushing breakdowns all woven together with deft and breathless intensity and made to sound absolutely massive thanks to the production of the savant that is Will Putney.
And yet they have even more to offer than that. Advance single Conditioned For A Head-On Collision leans heavily into 00s post-hardcore, the explicit influence of the likes of THRICE and THURSDAY immediately apparent in the most anthemic chorus on the record. The more dynamic Shapeless In The Dark follows right after that – not a total breather but a track with enough relative respite in its moodier moments to ready the listener for a final blistering run that culminates in the majestic closer Magnetic Roses. That track brings the curtain down after just 32 minutes, which is essentially the perfect runtime for an album like this, though many will of course feel compelled to double or triple it on pretty much every listen.
Because, in case it wasn’t clear enough already, this a metalcore classic in waiting, one with an eye – or maybe even both – on the genre’s heyday, but also with all the urgency and punch and indeed just the undeniably brilliant songcraft it needs to hold up as its own essential entity today. Hype and expectation can be dangerous things. FOREIGN HANDS have never had cause to be fazed by either.
Rating: 9/10
What’s Left Unsaid is set for release on June 21st via SharpTone Records.
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