In fairness to STORM, at only 16 years old, he’s still got time to outgrow the many cringe affects of the alt-metal brew. Not that there’s much precedent for that from anyone else, but we can hope, right? Though it’s hard to see why he’d see that as a necessity, given that he’s already racked up award nods and millions of TikTok views from skewing as teenaged and ‘contemporary’ in his sound as possible. It’s little shock that Falling In Reverse have been cited as an influence, not just because you’d have to be a literal child to find enjoyment from them, but also in how the mile-high self-importance that STORM’s music exhibits is simply impossible for it to pay off.
Even the most passive of listens will tell you that Join The Storm is railroaded by its tremendous ambitions. In a brew that’s infused with Bring Me The Horizon, Billie Eilish, Yungblud and, yes, Falling In Reverse, STORM is looking to fast-track himself into countercultural ‘icon for the misfits’ territory with no energy wasted. It’s a bit more acceptable of a goal coming from a teenager speaking to and for his own demographic, so points there. However, when you consider that Join The Storm feels like the cumulative sum of the most drab, spent threads of melodrama this approach has, it really starts to lose its way.
And at the centre of it all is STORM himself, thankfully not saddled with the ten-ton ego of one Mr Radke, but what could reasonably be chalked up as ‘star power’ isn’t there, either. Like him or not, Ronnie Radke knows he’s the main character of Falling In Reverse, and whether singing, screaming or rapping (ignoring his limitations in all three), that’s always true. STORM, on the other hand, appears to want to engender something similar as this metalcore multihyphenate, but more often than not, he’s out of his depth. There’s the unwieldy push-pull between untrained diction and English clearly not being his first language, reaching their impasse on a song like Alien Perspective that’s flat and nasal before spluttering gracelessly on its chorus. Screams aren’t so bad, as STORM clearly has more command over the lower, harsher end of his repertoire. In full metalcore mode like on Walking Dead or Fever Dreams, it’s the most fleshed-out a performance he gives sounds, if still not exactly the tightest.
In terms of what those performances beget…perhaps this is where the extension of some grace towards STORM is most necessary. In his songwriting, he absolutely shows his age, and it’s a little mean to hold that too heavily against him. This sort of alt-metal is rooted secure in a high school mentality as it is, so it’s not like the specific flavours of angst feel all that phony. If anything, Black Hole—a song about getting drawn in by a capricious girl that tilts sideways into hammering pop-punk—works excellently, thanks to a monster of a chorus and a bricked-out mix that smashes anything it touches to pieces. For a song that’s clearly taking its leads from the early works of jxdn and his sordid ilk, it’s a miracle this turns out as well as it does.
That being said, to outright ignore STORM’s crushing melodrama as it dives into the abyss of tolerability is probably being too generous. More than the album really deserves, as a matter of fact. After all, it’s only human to squirm and fold into yourself when Suffocating’s chorus drops “I’m a demon and it’s time for you to run”, a distillation of over-the-top emo prostration in its most basic, uninteresting form. Even the absolute highlight Black Hole isn’t unafflicted, home to the black mark of “I need attention, I’m tired of rejection / I would fight, I would die, I would give up tonight”. And, of course, for an album operating in the Falling In Reverse school of thought, Fever Dreams has its put-on cackles and ‘tense’ growls as shorthand for a troubled mind and the demons therein.
They’re not the kinds of critiques that can be excused through age or inexperience, not when they’re among the most pervasive and boring this scene has to offer. STORM himself isn’t directly to blame, but he’s co-opting them in a way that, for an artist so hell-bent on standing for superstar individuality, can sound so anonymous. It’s all the same big, slow slabs of chorus and punishing monochrome as the default. Pleasingly, the production isn’t as draconian as usual and actually allows for a bit of real heft sometimes. Though, when you take into account how most of Join The Storm seeks to close out even the smallest sliver of negative space created within it, it can make for a real chore. Just take Running From My Heart, already a pleading ballad in the form of the standardised concessions on all 2010s metalcore albums, but when it builds into its climax to where there’s barely an atom of oxygen to be found, it mixes into this greyed-out slurry with no form, tune or appeal.
The silver lining to all of this is how STORM is still young and precocious enough to find his feet. The arrested development of his idols is still quite a ways off yet, which makes Join The Storm a bit easier to stomach, honestly. It’s still far too flawed to deem even remotely good, but it’s hard to hate when abject grifters are wringing out this exact style for an easy in. At least STORM feels earnest! How much of a saving grace that is is a different matter, mind. At the end of the day, you’re still dealing with a basic, shallow listen that, from those descriptors alone, makes it clear how little its supposedly grand swings pay off. Perhaps the best thing to say for STORM at the moment, then, is that he’s a work in progress, and while it’s too early to bin him off, it’s hard to argue if you’re not exactly…blown away.
For fans of: Falling In Reverse, Bring Me The Horizon, Kid Brunswick
‘Join The Storm’ by STORM is released on 22nd August on Indie Recordings.
Words by Luke Nuttall
