Review Summary: Judiciary gallop across another bloody hellscape. They'll beat you and you'll love it.
One of the creative struggles for any would-be writer is the work of employing appropriate adjectives to successfully describe any one person, place, or thing. The sin is in redundancy; as in, the tendency to regurgitate the same sort of descriptors from work-to-work until the writing appears pedestrian or rote or, even worse, created with the use of an LLM that thinks of superlatives in the same way you or I would estimate the qualitative benefit of a hammer to the face versus a hammer to the balls: it’s all relative and the benefit is negligible.
I say all of this in order to set the stage for what is likely to be a controversial take: Judiciary’s extended play, Stalagmite Angels, is a prime cut of rip-roaring, groin-destroying metalcore dry-rubbed with a potent mixture of thrash and punk and enough breakdowns to ignite any proverbial briquette and is an EP deserving of end-of-year considerations. For fans of the band, there will be plenty of meat to sink one’s teeth into as the flavors that were seemingly refined and sharpened on the band’s second full-length, Flesh + Blood, are further polished to the musical gourmand’s satisfaction. If happiness trades in smiles, then consider Stalagmite Angels trading in stankface. Whether due to an aptly-timed breakdown or the seductive tendrils of thrash emerging from some hellish muck, Judiciary’s style of punkish metalcore ensures frequent, alternating periods of headbanging, toe tapping, or some other physical machination as the music transits from brain to body.
As with all good extended plays, each song communicates a self-possessed identity that helps give shape and form to a record with a runtime of only 21 minutes. “Wall of Skulls” opens the EP and, like the duology that opened 2023’s Flesh + Blood, immediately communicates the group’s intention. It is a barnburner in every sense of the word with a blistering opening riff and a thrashy attitude where guitars wail and squeal like a siren’s call. “Sanguine Reality”, the EP’s highlight, is the musical equivalent of bloodletting. As the song’s pace accelerates, the wound is drawn further open and blood spews and gushes, until the body is drained at which point the song fades into nothingness. From there the band continues their riffing rampage on “Hymns of a Calcified Warpath”, a frenetic and galloping track that will make most people’s mouths draw downward in sheer glorious disgust before closing with a very beautiful acoustic segues into the penultimate track, “Soul Sutra”. For a few precious seconds, listeners are graced with a quiet, contemplative acoustic passage as the blood and dust slowly settles on the ground before reforming in a swirling vortex. “Soul Sutra” stands as the most atmospheric track on the EP with a sonic sturm und drang as pained vocals echo against a wall of steelbooted aggression. “Death Knell” closes out the record with a concluding statement as fresh and angry as its opening wallop suggested.
While some may accuse Judiciary of sticking too close to the familiar and, worse yet, discount the quality type of metalcore they bring to the table, I take the road less traveled. If the band’s sound is like a blade, then Stalagmite Angels is damascus-steeled, fired and folded unto itself. Its edge finely honed, its blade as sharp as ever.
