ALBUM REVIEW: The Amity Affliction – ‘House Of Cards’

There’s been some drama afoot in Camp Amity Affliction. Ahren Stringer is now fully out of the band, beginning as a sabbatical in 2024 that ended up with his firing in 2025. Apparently there’s also been a legal dispute over trademarks between both parties since, the nitty-gritty of which is exactly as dry and corporate as you’d expect from The Amity Affliction.

From a listener’s perspective, though, there’s one huge benefit to Stringer no longer being in the band: you don’t have to hear his voice anymore. He always felt like The Amity Affliction’s source of woe, with his protracted monotone that made their all-too-clean mixes all the slushier. For a band whose thematic repertoire consists of depression, trauma, grief, substance abuse and suicide, having a singer who sounded so routinely uninvested wiped out any prospect of success from the start.

House Of Cards, then, almost makes you feel like you’re in the clear at first. It starts with Vida Nueva, a moody, cinematic intro. Next is Kickboxer, which is surprisingly visceral thanks to Joel Birch on a full screaming tear, the heaviest The Amity Affliction have been in forever. But then comes the title track and our introduction to Jonathan Reeves, or as he shall henceforth be known, Ahren Second-Stringer. This fascination with clean singers who’d be a better fit in Cute Is What We Aim For than anything is spitting distance of metal remains a mystery. Reeves also isn’t expressive and gets eaten alive by Birch, even without the skin-crawlingly Americanised curl in his voice that simply has to be a put-on.

At least he’s far from the oxygen hog that Stringer was. He’s only noticeably disruptive on the title track, Break These Chains and Swan Dive; the rest of the time, he doesn’t exactly slink into the background but you aren’t feeling out-and-out whiplash, either. If anything, Heaven Sent has a strong-enough earworm to circumvent the worst of Reeves’…acquired skills, even making him sound somewhat tolerable. Reeves’ lack of domination across House Of Cards works to its advantage, overall. It’s either a more democratic set-up between him and his co-vocalist, or taken over wholesale by Birch for naturally greater impact.

At long last, the primary strength of The Amity Affliction is allowed to take the reins. Even beyond that, Birch is now the longest-lasting member of the band; it makes sense for him to have the starring role. He is a great screamer, too, finally in an environment that does him justice. Kickboxer is an even better opener proper for that reason, tilting in true metalcore that The Amity Affliction have often been quick to lose track of. It’s a similar case with Bleed, Afterlife and the closer Eternal War; some actual firepower has been thrust into the equation for a change.

Now, this is still The Amity Affliction, and while their now-booted vocalist seems to have taken a lot of the baggage with him, it hasn’t all suddenly gone. There’s still a filmy quality to the production that’s presumably supposed to winch up the epicness of it all, when in reality, it can feel a little sodden. To the band’s credit, they do put in the conscious effort to not be as hamstrung by that as in the past. Break These Chains is basically edgeless in how it’s mixed, but at least Birch is giving it both barrels to make something from it. What might’ve been an overwrought, over-sentimental piece before is much more even-handed now, and this isn’t the only instance on the album.

So is House Of Cards the mythical great Amity Affliction album, never even presumed to exist? …er, no, it’s not. Sorry to be like that; it does deserve a lot of praise for how far it’s come along, but it’s not like this is some marvel of creativity. From your common or garden metalcore band, this would be par for the course, and while this benefits in the context of The Amity Affliction’s past stinkers, it’s still just kinda What It Is. Furthermore, the pop concessions that this band love (for whatever reason) seem to have stuck around, and that doesn’t help them. The synthesised vocal samples on Bleed don’t need to be there; multiply that sentiment exponentially for Reap What You Sow, which starts off wanting to be an EDM track before seeing some vestige of sense. It’s clear this isn’t some ground-up reimagining of The Amity Affliction that would probably be the best course to take at this point. Even the insistence of water imagery hasn’t gone away as seen on Swan Dive, an old habit that seems to be dying really, really hard.

All in all, then, House Of Cards averages out to something that’s…okay. For The Amity Affliction, though, that’s high praise indeed. This might be the best album they’ve ever made, by virtue of cutting the dead weight they’d been saddled with and being free to, y’know, be a metalcore band. Even if they’ve not curtailed all issues, the fact there’s actual hope and confidence for something good is mystifying all the same. On the other hand, if you’ve even a passing familiarity with metalcore, House Of Cards is nothing special. It does what it needs to do without pushing the envelope, which will ultimately be what tests The Amity Affliction most going forward. Still, for a band who’d regularly sit akin to a piece of rotten driftwood in the ocean they sing about so much, you take what praises you can get.

For fans of: Of Mice & Men, Wage War, Memphis May Fire

‘House Of Cards’ by The Amity Affliction is released on 24th April on Pure Noise Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall