It’d be all too easy to go into PRESIDENT’s debut full-length from a position of pure contempt, though to do so would simply be rehashing what came before on King Of Terrors. Nothing has changed since that EP came out, after all. They’re still a route-one alt-metal band, flooded by their bad, anonymous costumes and overzealous marketing. It all continues to succeed in spite of itself, too, so obviously you’d feel some type of way.
Instead, though, let’s try for something more diplomatic and investigate where their success comes from. This is the part that PRESIDENT’s detractors will ultimately choose to ignore, because, like it or not, they have succeeded. Their commercial achievements alone would suggest there’s an audience, and a vocal one, at that. People clearly like them; their entire existence hasn’t been astroturfed, to the chagrin of plenty. So what exactly is it about PRESIDENT that people are so enamoured with, more so than a litany of similar bands?
…dunno.
Yeah, it’s still an utter mystery what anyone sees in PRESIDENT. The whole ‘Download debut with no music released’ thing was weird, but now with tangible evidence of what this is, it’s beyond belief. And it does say a lot when, from the other side of the aisle, a significant volume of the praise they do get is entirely defensive. Counterclaims will be levelled about how they aren’t an industry plant (or how, if they are, it doesn’t matter, which is a whole other screed in itself) or how they’re not a Sleep Token ripoff, but is that supposed to be making a point? There’s nothing wrong with arguing your case, but it’s coming from such unstable ground, especially when criticisms are so easy and plentiful. Even when you put aside their all-too-quick rise (which is a bone of contention that even the diehards seem unsure of how to reconcile with), their music is blandly competent at best and the flavourless nadir of modern alt-metal’s trappings at worst, and the entire concept is threadbare and incongruous. Why is a band called PRESIDENT, whose aesthetic and promotional junket is styled as such, writing about religion and faith in such lofty terms?
With all of that in mind, then, you can readily draw the conclusion that Blood Of Your Empire is just as bad as King Of Terrors. It’s probably worse—it’s longer, and more turgid and directionless—but it also doesn’t inspire nearly the same bile that its predecessor did by the end of last year. Maybe it’s desensitisation; maybe it’s the fact that, even by the low standards of PRESIDENT, this feels remarkably impotent. King Of Terrors was a reopened Pandora’s box, where the demons of feckless, committee-driven, fake music were once again unleashed upon the world. Blood Of Your Empire? It’s just the empty box.
Might as well deal the killing blow first since it’s most prevalent: Blood Of Your Empire proves that the sensible stylistic range of PRESIDENT is almost unbelievably narrow. They do try to expand here and live up to their fated magnitude, only to trip rather regularly. A song like This Will Divide Us is especially misbegotten, as the direct antithesis to the bellowing maximalism that’s arguably their ‘best’ feature. When that’s the case, what you really want is a seasick guitar, a trap beat that could be shattered by a stiff breeze, and John President mumbling his un-sweet nothings over it all. There’s also White Devil with its cheap, jaunty piano and the most anaemic backbeat ever put to record, unceremoniously muscled out of the way for the usual fare because the album’s finale needs to be indicative of any purpose whatsoever.
More holistically speaking, PRESIDENT’s ‘broadened horizons’ (there isn’t a big enough font size to convey how much heavy lifting those quotation marks are doing) are a total non-starter. For the bulk of the album, there’s nothing to it at all. It’s the usual glut of synth-work and overproduction, sometimes cranked up that bit further to render the already-anonymous backing musicians entirely superfluous. And for as often as that’s the case, you’d hope for an idea to stick the landing, at least. Alas, not so. Instead, you get something like the synthwave trudge of DOOM LOOP, copied and pasted from countless other charlatans who want to put on a futuristic pose. Even worse is when there’s no clear direction or purpose for things like this; they just happen. The fixed trap whirr of dark heaven bricks out anything and everything it touches. Later, Mercy is an alt-metal brick buttered by queasily warping textures, before an organ that there’s no way didn’t come from a synth setting.
What’s funny is how, despite all of that, there’s a high-mindedness to how PRESIDENT present themselves that they truly believe they embody. They don’t, for the record; need we remind you that key image of this band is a ratty old man mask? It really puts into perspective how out of their depth that PRESIDENT are, though, even beyond the disparate mythologies they sport. Pink Noise finds itself invoking Plato’s Allegory of the Cave via a text-to-speech voice, thus sucking out the human component of any such philosophising and leaving it practically useless. DOOM LOOP and Sleepwalker do the same with other musings, neither proving all that stirring. Then, of course, there’s the aspect of religion, now more noncommittal than ever when it struggles to breach more than surface-level ‘epicness’. Most of the time, you get the gist of what it’s going for from titles alone—Angel Wings; dark heaven; White Devil; they’re images in the same way that a scribble on a piece of tissue is an image. It’s all encapsulated by the album cover, a glorious, opulent piece of art housing shallow, sterile nothings.
If there’s one song in particular that feels like every one of PRESIDENT’s many facades coming down in unison, it’s Hate Figure. This is a collaboration with Ando San, who offers rapped vocals against PRESIDENT’s singer’s bullish diatribes for an ‘anti-media’ song. On principle alone, the wheels fall off when the media has been the lifeblood of PRESIDENT’s entire existence, to where they would be literally nothing without the miles of column inches deigned upon them. That, then, reframes things into an anti-social media song, which is just fantastic; great job stooping to that level already. More to the point though, it’s the keenest obliteration of any verisimilitude that PRESIDENT may have left. This is what comes from a biblical, highfalutin project shrouded in mystique? The apogee of cringe that can’t even pretend to be more than a strop? At least Sleep Token’s Caramel was poetic!
It’s the kind of decision that does nothing but make Blood Of Your Empire feel more insignificant than it already is. Any tapestries that PRESIDENT are crafting are shoddy with unsightly seams running across them. They simply don’t feel equipped for the scale projected for them, even at a base level. This wasn’t as much of a problem with King Of Terrors’ shorter runtime, but the torpor of their vocalist is nearing unbearable levels here. On the bright side, the doorstop-thick layer of effects on his voice has been toned down; everything else considered, though, it’s barely a consolation. The falsetto on DOOM LOOP is tragic, and anyone with working ears could do without his mush-mouthed rapping on dark heaven. As a general trend, any slower tempos paired with this inorganic a musical canvas make him sound all the dozier.
That brings us around to the ‘metal’ portion of the PRESIDENT discussion, treated as as much of an afterthought by us as the band themselves. It’s the same as it ever was—anything ‘heavy’ is entirely perfunctory and only here to fill up space. There’s no shape or dynamism or even real power; it’s simply opaque stodge that struggles to register when it comes about. There’s barely even an effort to the contrary, thanks to how tired and ungainly these compositions are. You couldn’t do anything with them even if you tried. Maybe that’s why Dionysus has been inexplicably brought over from the EP, as a reminder of PRESIDENT’s perpetual stasis that they’re physically unable to wrest themselves free from.
And yet, despite all of that, there’s a couple of things about Blood Of Your Empire that are pretty good. Nothing major, but, y’know…let’s take what we can get. Worth highlighting most is their drummer, who should probably be in a better band. They’re a genuinely capable player, outright saving Angel Wings’ leaden breakdown and strongarming their way into the spotlight for a bit on DOOM LOOP and dark heaven. The rest is very brief, but again, it’s something. It’s nice to hear a fleeting bit of brass on This Will Divide Us; it doesn’t fit at all, but the only sound on the album not loaded with E numbers deserves a mention. There’s also a couple of tiny windows of potential for things to catch flight. On a good day, a few bits of Mercy and the hyperpop glances on Pink Noise might trend somewhat positively.
But, yeah, that’s it. That’s Blood Of Your Empire, an album which, after the zeitgeist-shuddering drop of King Of Terrors, is profoundly uneventful. It’s almost enough to make you believe that PRESIDENT didn’t expect to get this far; it’s just that unable to even feign penetrivity. Now, for a band who’ve undoubtedly had their meal schedules and toilet breaks planned out for the next however-many years, that’s probably unlikely. The outcome is still the same, though. Blood Of Your Empire is one of the most joyless, soulless listening experiences you’ll have all year. There’s no excitement to be gleaned or starry-eyed wonder at where those daring mysteriosos in PRESIDENT will go next. Instead, it’s a stitched-together bore that could only possibly appeal to those who fell for it the first time, and at least then, there was the prospect of getting in on the ground with something new. Now, it’s just embarrassing.
For fans of: PRESIDENT
‘Blood Of Your Empire’ by PRESIDENT is out now on Atlantic Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
Accurate review. This band is as manufactured as Taylor Swift.
Sleep Token suck.