Speaking Easy - When the Feature Outshines You

(By Melody Werner)

Having greatly enjoyed Spiritbox's Eternal Blue, I was naturally eager to hear more from the band. So I dove into their previous EP's, had a good amount of fun with that. But then I saw that their vocalist, Courtney LaPlante, had guested on a few tracks, and thought that she could really add a lot of genuine grace to your typical generic metalcore whinging session, and maybe encourage some creativity from an otherwise okay act. In practice, I found them all on a sliding scale of pretty alright with solid chemistry, and on the more interesting end, to have been meat & potatoes metalcore with Courtney providing by far the best bit of the song.

Nothing could've, or frankly would've, compelled me to give Crown the Empire a chance other than something like a feature from an artist or band that I actually respect. In fairness, Crown the Empire are not trashcore in the strata of Emmure or Attila, that much is true. But they are absolutely, positively tepid. Metal, even at its worst, is supposed to make you feel something. Whether that's simply rocking out to sick riffs, or having your spine tingle at a sinister verse, or relating to lyrical and sonic anguish portrayed. Listening to this band, I feel like I am staring into a void. People say that being nothing but positive in reviews is naïve, but if you put a gun to my head and said I'd have to say anything more about Crown the Empire than an expression of the purest concentration of apathy, I'd say to pull the trigger. But I am not above being surprised. Perhaps, in the presence of a genuine musician like Courtney, they'd step up their game. Or they could just serve as an ad for their own meteor.

Whereas diet Bring Me the Horizon over here perform their meat and potatoes middleschoolcore, LaPlante shows just how much of a better vocalist she is. She completely outclasses the android CtE call a frontman. And it's not even nearly her greatest performance. Yeah, even her crumbs outweigh the baguettes on offer from these ciphers. All told, it's like eating Lucky Charms. None of it is very good, but there are some bits of flavor in there which make it not entirely worthless, but I still struggle to find much worth in it all the same.

As uncharitable as this write-up may have been, I did go in with an open mind and pair of ears. Since I started first writing this, I have already completely forgotten the sound of "In Another Life", other than the bitter aftertaste that comes with experiencing absolute nothingness. I can only recommend giving it a spin if you really want every one of Spiritbox's extracurriculars, or if you need a jam to listen to before P.E..