Boy, wouldn’t it be a shame if this new Spiritbox album were bad?
That’s a question that probably no one has pondered, not in the least the Spiritbox fanbase. For them, this album had likely clinched its spot as a best-of-the-year contender (if not outright winner) from the nanosecond it was announced. Alongside Sleep Token and Bad Omens, they’re among the image of what metal’s pinnacle is to a certain generation of listeners (and of the three, are the only one fully deserving of their spot up there).
So is there any reason to be concerned? Well…no, not really. If you want the current gold standard for how to hold onto hype, justify it, and not let it fizzle away under industry complacency, Spiritbox are it. If anything, they’ve been calling the shots, and letting attention come to them without changing a thing. Great output is one thing, but for a metal band that didn’t even exist a decade ago, the opportunities that Spiritbox have been awarded are unprecedented. They’ve been nominated for Grammys, plural, and took to task the recent metal-averse incarnations of Reading & Leeds with a main stage slot last year. They were there as a buffer to Two Door Cinema Club and Gerry Cinnamon, but in the bigger picture, that couldn’t matter less—even if the mainstream has no idea what to do with Spiritbox yet, it still wants them there. It’s like where Architects were in the first half of the 2010s, in fact, when they were still on top of the world and years away from their eventual fall-off.
You could maybe argue, then, that the feel of Tsunami Sea is of an album with little to prove. There’s just no need when the enthusiasm around Spiritbox hasn’t calmed, nor has their reach far beyond metal’s parameters dwindled. But as always, there’s no complacency in that statement. Spiritbox simply feel like naturals, delivering a premier, topshelf metalcore experience unthinkable of their whacked-out genesis point Iwrestledabearonce. Compared to where Spiritbox stand now, that might as well be an aberrant footnote in their lineage; they handily and effortlessly surpassed that years ago, and still only keep rising.
Thus, with Tsunami Sea, there are very few complaints. If you had to find a ‘main’ one, you could perhaps point to a repertoire that’s largely stayed the same—the texture of tech-metal ironed out into long, languid compositions with little surface variety. But at the same time, what’s the use in faulting that when Spiritbox perform it better than almost all others who’ll make the attempt? This is the blockbuster album you’d hope for after years of unstoppable growth, where it feels expensive and modern, but in a non-robotic sense that’s like gold dust coming from their ilk.
The MVP is obviously Courtney LaPlante (or is it Poppy? Can never remember), vocalist extraordinaire with the range and technique to run rings around any challenger, in any arena. Once again, ease is the key to this ridiculous level of quality. As a screamer, the instincts rooting Soft Spine and No Loss, No Love flow unimpeded, without a bit of strain or overexertion. To fit at Spiritbox’s grand scale, it’s a perfect performance, topped only by LaPlante as a singer. There is no one in metalcore with a better singing voice than here, and putting that on full display on Perfect Soul or the title track—with all of its fluid, ethereal, pop-but-not-quite attributes—is such a massive contributor in setting Spiritbox apart. It’s why the mechanical filters on parts of Black Rainbow hit such a bum note; they aren’t prominent enough to outright irk, but blocking an invaluable asset in such a way doesn’t go unnoticed.
Thankfully, it might be the only production choice on Tsunami Sea that doesn’t work. It’s actually quite amazing in the context of this genre—Spiritbox are no less high-gloss and free of imperfections than countless numbers of their peers, but the tiniest bit of applicable knowledge goes such a long way. It’s the vibe of Architects again, as a titanic mix filled to the edges with audible bluster doesn’t neglect that, at its centre, is still a metal band. In Spiritbox’s case, their concoction is of tuned down to utterly crushing levels, with a hard, monochrome finish to leave it even more stark.
The difference-maker is their gift for melody and how not sidelining it is such an obvious yet under-exercised boon in this style. Their debut Eternal Blue was already flung forward of its contemporaries as a tech-metal album that could piece together real songs instead of a ream of scale exercises, and Tsunami Sea is even better in that regard. Although Spiritbox aren’t necessarily a band for towering, ear-candy hooks, they don’t make forgettable music, either. The careful curation and fine-tuning strikes all manner of chords throughout, especially when there is more immediacy in a vocal hook like on Keep Sweet. Crystal Roses deserves a special mention in that regard, in what feels like Spiritbox’s attempt to alchemise a Pendulum song via their icier, liquid drum ‘n’ bass preferences. It’s not the best song on Tsunami Sea by a considerable margin—again, vocal filters, while stylistically appropriate, aren’t preferable—but it’s an angle of growth for Spiritbox that hits their strengths and, critically, feels logical.
Perhaps what resonates most about Tsunami Sea is how it doesn’t feel like it’s rushing to a dead end, like so much metalcore out there. The simple feel of Spiritbox is infinitely more creative, even if the aren’t in a hurry to abandon or refresh their clutch of ideas. In truth, they don’t need to be. If Tsunami Sea proves anything, it’s how much life this band still has, and how their efforts aren’t slowing down or tapering off just yet. By no means is Spiritbox’s infiltration of mainstream spaces over; if all is right, Tsunami Sea could be where it truly kicks into high gear, and the fact that’s being said about what’s still a relatively new metal band with a sound free of some decades-old analogue is a gift unto itself.
It would be a shame if the new Spiritbox album were bad, but as of right now, that couldn’t be less worth worrying about.
For fans of: Architects, Sleep Token, Northlane
‘Tsunami Sea’ by Spiritbox is out now on Pale Chord Music / Rise Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
In my opinion the album feels chunky with really difficult to hear lyrics. The guitars, drums, & bass all kind of meld together with a kind of undesirable listen.