Okay, so from the early signs of this, it looks disastrous. First off, Not Enough Space came together through a shared love of Asking Alexandria, which is…just a terrific start… From there, they coined their own functionally meaningless genre tag of ‘moancore’ (which just seems to be metalcore by another name). Their primary moves have been made through TikTok, the bastion of creative growth and longevity that it is. And to top it all off, they’ve got a really bad album cover and a Tumblr-ass ‘goths in the woods’ promo shot to go with it. Doesn’t sound all that promising, does it? And yet…
Not to oversell this, but in the way that someone like Motionless In White is considered a ‘premium’ metalcore product, so could Not Enough Space. Weaponize Your Rage definitely isn’t as dated or stagnant as it might appear from the outside. In fact, it’s a rather good example of how to pay homage to that era without kowtowing to its less-flattering affects. Here’s a band that you can absolutely believe love and were inspired by Asking Alexandria and their ilk, and yet there’s rarely anything close to the same vicegrip of cringe or lack of anything even halfway credible.
We aren’t out of the woods entirely, mind. For a metalcore band for whom that era is their lodestar, it happens. Not as often as you might expect, sure, but a song title like Devil Left Me On Read is a rather convincing warning shot of what can lie within. Once again, not too unlike Motionless In White there, in a very—to use the album bio’s own terminology—‘rage bait-y’ form of screaming, mauling release. Lyrics to the effect of Eat Kill Repeat’s “Self-serving righteous prick / Why don’t you get on your knees and suck this dick?” have been rinsed of anything scandalous at this point in time. It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from two women; it’s too Attila-coded to be wanted or needed by anyone. There’s also the moan on Primitive’s breakdown, itself a fairly insignificant bit of punctuation, but if that’s what the whole ‘moancore’ branding sprouted from, it’s like the musical clickbait that should’ve been obliterated with old waves of quacks fishing for whatever press they could get. In other words, it’s no different in essence than crabcore.
Thankfully that seems to be all, and Not Enough Space can proceed with massively exceeding preconceptions. Because Weaponize Your Rage really does do that. For one, Lizzie Raatma and Liv Mitchell might be one of the most impressive vocal units a modern metal act has built itself around in some time, where if the minutiae of the execution can gripe, the wider angle levels any such complaints flat. That high-end vampire-shriek that does the most on the title track is what Not Enough Space’s legacy will rest on; calling it now. It’s such a vicious, brutally sharpened blade to have amongst their weaponry, perhaps to the extent where everything else is shored up because of it. The lower growls and instrumentation equipped with depth and heaviness are good on their own, but it’s that contrast that lifts things up even more.
Furthermore, it’s nice to have a metalcore band with this sort of mainstream proximity that isn’t so gated in and limited. At its most standard, Weaponize Your Rage is already heavier than many a likeminded breakdown-merchant. Looking further past that, though, Waiting For You and Mayday dabble back into Not Enough Space’s pop-rock roots, naturally with a waft of emo melodrama that, when you’re looking for it, is almost too obvious. (The surprise isn’t that the line “Marching in a black parade” is here; it’s that they waited until the final song to get it out.) Still, funnel that into some soaring hooks on Don’t Let Go and Solace In Silence, and you’re all good.
There are certainly some additional less-than-ideal ways that Not Enough Space configure their efforts—see some of the production clanks and jars on New Age Cannibal that don’t amount to much—but at the very least, you can tell that more effort has been put into this than scene standard typically presents. However, even with the extra grace being offered for that, Weaponize Your Rage is just pretty solid. A little shake-up of expectations is always nice, especially when there’s a fundamentally solid act to underscore more than simply ‘better than the others’. If some of malignant spectres of metalcore past would fully clear out, there could be something pretty great here already; otherwise, still a good start.
For fans of: Motionless In White, Spiritbox, Make Them Suffer
‘Weaponize Your Rage’ by Not Enough Space is released on 12th September on Thriller Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
