Review Summary: Times change and people change with them.
Canadian post-hardcore legends Alexisonfire have finally released a new full-length record after releasing occasional singles and playing sporadic festivals worldwide. We have seen a variety of 00’s post-hardcore bands re-emerging over the last 18 months, however Alexisonfire is one of the only ones that had a true “death”. Following their final live show, it seemed as though the band was done, having released 3 highly-lauded albums (
Alexisonfire,
“Watch out!”, and
Crisis) and another that had mixed reviews (
Old Crows / Young Cardinals), and not much was known about the future of the pride of St. Catherine’s, Ontario.
Throughout the dark period between
Old Crows / Young Cardinals, members of the band had been very actively releasing music - guitarist Wade McNeil fronting the punk band Gallows and his own psychrock outfit Doom’s Children, guitarist/vocalist Dallas Green reaching huge success with his indie-folk moniker City & Colour, and vocalist George Pettit working in a punk band Dead Tired. Drummer Jordan Hasings was also touring with Billy Talent. Since the dissolution of Alexisonfire in late 2012, each member has branched on their own path, exploring new creative territory for themselves and embracing styles that they loved. Leading up to the album, the band made it no secret that
Otherness would be an album that truly sounded like what they believe Alexisonfire is in 2022 – a combination of multiple individual talents with various creative visions mixed with styles that they themselves wished they could have explored earlier. Prior to the release of this album, the band conducted various interviews with publications and revealed that outside of their space within the post-hardcore scene, they would often listen to artists like Tears for Fears and Sade on the tour buses because they loved it, not because they felt forced into maintaining some hard-edged image within their own minds. In 2022, after releasing various one-off tracks here and there over the past few years, they were finally able to come together and craft something true to themselves - an album with stoner rock elements a la Kyuss, indie-soul a la Hozier, and still weaving in signature post-hardcore and punk familiarities from their past on tracks like “Survivor’s Guilt” and “Reverse the Curse”.
“Coming together” relates not only to the physical reunion of these long-time friends and bandmates, but also how they incorporated each other within the music on
Otherness through collaborative songwriting, self-production and their newfound motivation to make something more. The pandemic allowed them to practice and write more often, share ideas, and craft songs based on input from all members of the band. For example “San Soliel” was originally written by Green and McNeil, with the former having the guitar riff in his pocket for a long time and McNeil having written the vocal portions for himself to sing. After crafting the song around that, they came to the collective conclusion that to make the song right, McNeil should lead on guitar and Green take the reigns vocally, because “when you have Steph Curry [Green] on the team, who else would you give the ball to?”. Soul and RnB really shine through with the vocal melody on this track, primarily influenced by the aforementioned Sade.
They had expressed that in the past that writing music for themselves and coming together to make it work was sufficient enough for them, but after spending time away and back again, they recognized how working alongside one another helps develop what they had been building individually for the past 20 years. Spanning the whole album, you hear the different vocalists singing, chanting and screaming alongside each other more than they have on any other album. Tracks like “Dark Night of the Soul” and “Conditional Love” contain anthemic gang vocals and layered harmonies that highlight the band’s three talented vocalists. The vocal and instrumental writing seems much more cohesive, purposeful and balanced across
Otherness, confirming the band’s message of collective contribution, most notably found on tracks like “Blue Spade” and “Sweet Dreams of Otherness”. Dallas Green especially elevates himself to new heights, exuding more power than he had throughout all of Alexisonfire’s tenure, really testing his vibrato and range. George Pettit also sets himself loose on songs like “Conditional Love” and “Survivor’s Guilt”. Instrumentally, the entire album introduces simpler, more punk-inspired riffs and chord progressions with flairs of stoner rock distortion and alt-rock, with the closer “World Stops Turning” tying the ribbon on the album with sweeping solos and jamband imprints.
However, the production on this album leaves a lot to be desired. While this was a self-produced project and did not have professional studio mastering, there are mixing choices that hamper the impact of some songs on
Otherness. While distortion and muddy mixing is quite common and almost expected in stoner rock, there are layering and audio level conflicts that drown out vocals, overblend guitars or overpower higher frequencies, which is very noticeable on tracks like “Dark Night of the Soul” and “Reverse the Curse” There are whispers that certain streaming platforms like Spotify have lower-quality playback options when compared to lossless versions on Apple Music, however I cannot confirm this. In 2022, production can be fixed via streaming and updated versions of albums can be released digitally, which the band
could take advantage of if they wanted to adjust anything. Fortunately, most tracks do not suffer from too many egregious issues.
Now that Alexisisonfire is back in the fold, music is better off. They are five guys with wildly different tastes and images who came together and made themselves mainstays for two decades. With all members at or approaching 40 years old, they've welcomed an artistic metamorphosis that had been building since their debut.
