Review Summary: Don't trust the un-process.
The Unprocessed of old has been dead and buried twice now: first with
Gold--a haphazard foray into Polyphia-meets-Imagine Dragons-prog-pop that dramatically severed ties with the sci-fi prog metal passages of
Artificial Void--and now with 2023’s
... And Everything In Between, which similarly dumps
Gold into the grave by executing another profound shift. This go-around, the objective is boiled down to heaviness, making heaviness heavier, and making sure the audience is aware that Unprocessed is now very heavy. Yesteryear’s pop is banished to a minimized supporting role in favor of an ERRA-meets-Silent Planet combination of metalcore technicality, djent grooves, and bouncy breakdowns prepped and ready for a mosh frenzy. For anyone thinking
identity crisis at this juncture, you’re not wrong;
...And Everything In Between tries adamantly to sell a hefty new venture, but nothing about the group’s second renovation comes across as an improvement nor a cohesive vision.
Hinging everything off of heaviness alone is a sufficient enough warning sign from the jump; tossing weight around isn’t intriguing enough to carry a song, let alone an entire record. Unprocessed implement it in the most unwieldy manner possible while executing it in the most standard method imaginable, with random bursts of aggression rubbing elbows with the gentle, mellow soundscapes carried over from the likes of
Artificial Void--”Blackbone” is ruined by one of the more hilariously arbitrary and half-baked breakdowns this side of Invent Animate--and ultimately sounding like something ripped from the depths of TesseracT’s catalog. Unprocessed’s Polyphia-esque noodling, math-infused rocking, smooth textures and twinkling chords consistently ram into hamfisted bro-core intervals, which in turn awkwardly swing into melodic pop choruses made as forcefully bombastic as
Dark Sun-era Dayseeker. None of the three approaches exist in harmony, yet each is brought to the forefront. That kind of whiplash takes the form of a track like “Thrash”--an unpleasant whirlwind of overproduced prog-pop, distracting electronics, blast beats, directionless Polyphia tech exercises, and a breakdown so desperate to hit like a truck that even Lorna Shore are asking to scale it back.
Any virtuosity on the surface belies how predictable Unprocessed have become. Consider how “Glass” develops from delicate riffing interwoven into an understated atmosphere to a seemingly tacked-on metalcore jaunt, which then careens into a nauseatingly flamboyant refrain that inelegantly glosses over the muddle. Then consider how nearly every track past “Lore”--a promising blend of a groovy lead riff, punishing bass line and spurts of technical and electronic flourishes a la
Superbloom--progresses in the exact same manner, where all roads must lead to the metaphorical Rome of a cheap breakdown or djent chug festival. “Blackbone'' and “Abysm” dutifully go through the established motions--quiet opening that leans into restrained strumming, ambiance and splashes of pop, then on comes the inevitably lethargic djent bouncin’ and attached breakdown--but any other surrounding tune is equally guilty. Sometimes the appearance of the heaviness differs, such as the abrupt acceleration and furious skrem-ing of “I Wish I Wasn’t” that tears a B-side Deftones attempt apart, or the rapid-fire double-bass drumming and growling bass riff of “Abysm” that sounds like a fart, but it is predestined to show up and provide an artificial hardcore edge. The result is a strange double-edged sword dipped in poison: songs are stuck in a linear format, yet said format is botched to where it somehow still sounds inconsistent.
In numerous cases, those explosions of Angry Polyphia antics simply aren't necessary. It forces the aforementioned “Thrash” to display a variety of genre influences in a short timespan, ultimately causing the tune to sound like it’s juggling three separate songs at once. Similarly, it transforms “Die On The Cross Of The Martyr” from purposeless, albeit harmless prog metal wanderings and electronics into a cycle of excessive breakdowns, each connected by a chorus where the vocalist desperately strains to imbue emotion into proceedings, including a Disturbed-like
UAH UAH shouted out to kick off the djent parade. There’s no telling if something interesting was happening beneath the theatrical mush of low-end abuse since an audience is bound to focus on that alone; Unprocessed write
heavy in an overblown and overproduced fashion akin to Humanity’s Last Breath, wherein everything is made excessively crushing without a care given to where it’s placed, if it’s developed at all, if it caps off a climactic moment, or it does anything that predecessors haven’t already demonstrated.
Any complaints seem wrapped into a bow by “Purgatory,” by which point the previous eight tracks have been sufficiently exhausting in their predictability, mimicry, and aggravating attempts at being hip with the deathcore crowd. It’s certainly a new identity for Unprocessed, but they again fail to learn any lessons from prior criticisms; they’re still languishing at the bottom of the barrel of their inspirations, unable to shake off comparisons that are too close to home for an act five albums deep into their existence. Their latest shot at beating such allegations comes across as a panic maneuver--a hurried burial of a pop style that flopped out of the gate, with an over-indulgent heaviness makeover providing damage control. Sprinting in the opposite direction of a misguided genre shift didn’t eliminate the songwriting flaws Unprocessed have always had--if anything, they’ve been worsened, exposed by an amateurish reading on how modern metalcore outfits go about their arrangements. Until the quartet irons out their lingering foundational woes, no amount of identity changes will uncover an answer for them.
