Review Summary: Chaos in its most intense form
Chaos is really the only word that comes to mind when listening to this album. But it’s a controlled chaos, one that never feels like it doesn’t have a purpose.
Collapse by Design shows Sentinels taking influence from metalcore, progressive metalcore, and mathcore and crafting a unique sound for metalcore in 2021, one that goes beyond the simple tropes of the genre. This is chaos, but a good kind of chaos.
With a sound similar to groups like The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza,
Collapse by Design is full to the brim with extreme riffs that contrast heavily with heavy, low tuned guitars and high-pitched dissonance. Often differing from the general tropes of rhythm, the guitar work is chaotic and wild, erupting into riffs and grooves that begin as soon as another ends. Impressively following such chaos is the drumming that matches the intense jumping of riffs seamlessly. With constant stop-start rhythms, the drum work continuously shifts from blast beats to choked cymbal chops to pummeling hardcore grooves all while maintaining the flow of the record. This constant variation in the riffs and grooves results in a consistently engaging flow that excites the listener from track to track without ever feeling predictable or monotonous.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of musicianship throughout
Collapse by Design is Sentinels’ ability to craft a captivating soundscape that fills each and every moment of space. The dispersed ambience throughout truly elevates the atmosphere of the record as a whole, creating momentary breaks that allow the music to breathe and embrace the listener in a warm sound that encapsulates the whole track. From the ambient breakdown in “Inertia” to the interlude track “Solitude,” Sentinels displays their craftmanship of maintaining heaviness while integrating openness and melody into their songs. This mixture of ambience and dissonant brutality creates a beautiful contrast of heaviness and melody that amplifies the power of
Collapse by Design.
This contrast is further accentuated by the abrasiveness of Sentinels’ frontman. Across every track, the vocals remain intense, never giving into any melody but maintain a harsh brutality that soars throughout the record. Although his tone is rather monotonous, the delivery remains fresh in each song. With unique phrasing across breakdowns and resting to amplify the power of the musical composition, the screams and harshes scattered throughout manage to be engaging and impactful without feeling too similar. With this chemistry between the music and the vocals,
Collapse by Design feels like a fluid composition that flows seamlessly from track to track without ever losing momentum.
Clocking in at just over 48 minutes,
Collapse by Design is a brutal journey that is relentless from start to finish. With very few moments of breathing and plenty of time spent crushing listeners, Sentinels’ most recent full length proves to be a record worthy of being a front-runner in the metalcore genre. In a genre ridden with structure and formulation, the chaos and unpredictability of
Collapse by Design is a welcome freshness that has been absent in metalcore for too long.
