Review Summary: Eternal Blue 2, but tighter
It’s been a banner couple of years for Spiritbox. Whether or not you love or hate their new direction, it’s impossible to ignore how their alt-metalcore full-length
Eternal Blue blew up the metalcore world. And while
Rotoscope has its fair share of detractors, in the humble opinion of this random music listener, it did a pretty good job at extending
Eternal Blue’s melodic sensibilities into a catchy, yet still plenty heavy EP. And when “Jaded” dropped in August, all eyes were once again on the Canadian collective as we waited to see how their new EP
The Fear of Fear would stack up. Things looked promising, but would they deliver?
In short, yes, they would and they did.
The Fear of Fear is the stronger follow-up to
Eternal Blue, tightening up the band’s blend of aggression and atmosphere into a short-but-sweet 6-song package. “Cellar Door” and “Angel Eyes” bring the heavy for anyone who missed the djentyness that was missing from
Rotoscope, cuts like “Ultraviolet” and “Too Close / Too Late” put full emphasis on Courtney LaPlante’s damn near angelic cleans, and EP highlight “Jaded” brings it all together for a stunning track that comes all too soon in the tracklist. Even lead single “The Void”, which was viewed with a level of worry upon its release, sounds much better in the EP’s context (though I was already a fan of the song before the EP was announced, so I admit bias there).
It’s not entirely perfect, “Too Close / Too Late” does feel like a small stumbling block when placed between behemoths like “Jaded” and “Angel Eyes”, and your mileage will vary heavily on whether or not “The Void” is a good melodic Spiritbox track, but this EP is a strong statement from an already pretty strong band nonetheless. The sky’s the limit at this point, and if Spiritbox can take this EP’s success and find a way to translate it to LP 2, I can only see them going up.
