After exploring for so long the un-gated sluice that is metalcore’s release schedule, you begin to pick up on some things. The good; the bad; the hideously boring; it all becomes recognisable. And from it, you can conclude that, sometimes, a linear scale of quality just doesn’t do the trick. In situations like this, you get metalcore’s equivalent to horseshoe theory—the utter garbage isn’t that far removed from the good stuff, and it becomes a matter of degrees above most everything else.
For Windwaker’s new album, we’re lucky that there’s such a recent case study to pit it against and prove how this works: Banks Arcade’s Second Place Superstar. Both are metalcore releases from Antipodean bands, blurring lines between alt-metal and hip-hop, and striving to make their ‘genrelessness’ feel fresh and exciting. For Banks Arcade, theirs was an utter misfire, sloshed-out and drained of inspiration to ignominious ends. Windwaker, on the other hand, through simply tinkering and rewiring a handful of elements in that exact circuit, are onto a pretty succinct winner.
smile, you’re on camera. is a particularly noteworthy case because, for the longest time, Windwaker were closer to the other side of the equation. Never outright terrible, but an unquestionable inclusion among metalcore myriad ‘parts of the furniture’. Now, they seem much more geared up to add some weight to their name. low sets the tone well, with a hardened, heavy guitar tone that’s replicated on click and victory lap, and brushes an edge of the metalcore palette that hasn’t been muddied from overuse. As for Liam Guinane’s rapping, the white-boy chest-puffery is…what it is, but it comes with investment. It’s preferable to ’too-cool-to-put-effort-in’ garbling any day of the week.
That’s the common denominator across smile, you’re on camera. that gives Windwaker their edge. Even against the shipshape metalcore production with every modern trimming in the book, effort and earnestness aren’t treated as lame relics. It’s what has burn tap into a vocal melody that’s totally its own, or the feature-complete update of the rap-metal template on victory lap that never fails to shock in its conciseness. Stumbles do occur—do or die is stitched together a bit messily, and some days is a whimper of a closer—but Windwaker are outperforming expectations, overall.
It helps, too, that there are some genuine earworms on here, more than might expect. It’s another area where Windwaker deserve nothing but praise, for how committed they are to pushing these songs over the top. closer; dna; lie to me; all of them power forward without compunction. It’s in aid of making amends with the skyscraping hooks that metalcore seems to have fallen out with. The slow, dulled clunk that’s treated as a suitable alternative is rarely seen as an option for Windwaker, all for the best. Case in point: click and loser are out-and-out J-rock songs, a terrifying prospect in a scene that doesn’t know what a colour is. But with rocketing, digitised production and a monster of a chorus on the latter, this is exactly what metalcore should be aiming for.
That all circles back to the original point made, and how Windwaker aren’t some radical trailblazers redefining the genre as we know it. They’re as locked in on the tropes and conventions as anyone else; they just know how to use them so much more effectively. That’s the only reason that smile, you’re on camera. impresses, but look at how far that goes. The best part of it is how, going forward, there’s no excuse for mid-range metalcore to be so substandard, because Windwaker have proven what can be done.
Smile, you’ve made a good album.
For fans of: Bad Omens, The Plot In You, I Prevail
‘smile, you’re on camera.’ by Windwaker is released on 23rd October on Fearless Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
