Spiritbox

Eternal Blue

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ft. Sam Carter.
Genre: Metalcore.
Released: 17/09/2021
Via Rise Records

Album Review: Spiritbox – Eternal Blue

Spiritbox have exploded onto the scene over the past year which has made the excitement around their first full-length album ‘Eternal Blue’ quite the thing to behold. The Canadian metal outfit have almost come out of nowhere, to being featured on magazine covers around the world, while the hype around this release has continuously grown, but now it is finally here and the question on everyone’s mind is ‘Does it live up to the hype?’ Here are my thoughts on ‘Eternal Blue’ by Spiritbox.

Opening the album is the melodic track ‘Sun Killer’. This track eases the listener in with a more mellow approach, to begin with before the song drops into a heavy onslaught as Courtney LaPlante’s vocals go from soothing to aggressive with intent real fast. The momentum continues into the next song which is ‘Hurt You’. Boasting a dominant beat that will have you headbanging throughout the entirety of the track, this song is bound to have a lot of people adding this to their playlists with very little hesitation. The breakdown in this track hits very well and despite not being the heaviest, it certainly packs a punch.

Following that is ‘Yellowjacket’ which has a feature from Architects own Sam Carter. Introducing the band more eccentric style for the first time on this album, this song has more progressive elements to it. In addition to this, Sam’s unique vocals add an exciting new layer to the Spiritbox formula that works surprisingly well. Once again, this track features one hell of a breakdown that is bound to have pits erupting around the world when Spiritbox hit the road with this one. ‘The Summit’ is up next and it’s quite the contrast from everything else before it. If I had to define this track I’d put it down as one of the albums radio-friendly tracks. It’s one of the bands softer tracks that allows for more experimentation instrumentally. It’s a decent track that helps to pace the album but it’s certainly not one of the highlights of the record.

Coming in with melodic grace, ‘Secrete Garden’ continues the focus on more technical instrumentals to accompany Courtney’s delicate clean vocals. This track is quite upbeat and manages to hold its own fairly well. Once again, this song seems like the type of song that will be played constantly on the radio as it mixes the heavy side of metal with the melodic side nicely. If you are a fan of the bands heavier stuff, ‘Silk In The Strings’ may just be the song for you. Intense gutturals mixed with a powerful backing track makes for one hell of a listening experience. This song does well to reintroduce the band’s heavier outlet, without feeling forceful at all.

The next song needs no introduction. ‘Holy Roller’ has instantly become a hit for the band with the track already amassing over 9 million streams on Spotify alone! The emphatic track boasts an extremely heavy style mixed with an industrial esc instrumental. This song alone drew the attention of a lot of new fans for the band and I can see why. It’s one hell of a unique song that deserves all the praise it has received thus far. With that being said, following such a powerful track with the mellow style of ‘Eternal Blue’ feels off to me. The contrasting styles on display don’t flow nicely into each other at all which creates a lull in the album. It’s an unfortunate misstep from the Canadian Metal outfit.

Going even more left-field, ‘We Live In A Strange World’ is certainly different. This song is going to divide a lot of fans I recon and unfortunately, I’m not a fan of this track. It’s an eccentric song that completely changes the style of the album up until this part. Around halfway through the song, the robotic esc instrumental witches to a more recognisable metal track however I just can’t get into the way the robotic section sounds. It’s not for me that’s for sure. Thankfully, ‘Halcyon’ brings the album back to some sort of normality. It’s far from the heaviest track on the record however it is just a joy to listen to. The song flows nicely and doesn’t feel intrusive at all. It’s a needed dose of melodic metal that really ties the album together nicely.

Approaching the end of the album now and ‘Circle With Me’ is the penultimate track. Mixing the band heavy and melodic style makes for really good listening. Catchy riffs paired with an angelic vocal melody works well for Spiritbox and I can’t help but wonder if the band will lean into tracks like this more in future releases. The way the song switches between calm and aggressive is seamless which is a lot harder to do than you may think. Finishing up the album is ‘Constance’. This song is a culmination of everything that has come before it which makes it a great choice to close out the band’s debut album. Its instrumental is quite something and I highly recommend putting this song on and just losing yourself in its melodies. It’s a truly remarkable track.

Overall, Spiritbox has released a really good debut album. With the bands popularity skyrocketing with the release of ‘Holy Roller’, they had a lot to live up to, and I think this does live up to the hype. It isn’t perfect but that’s okay as the band show an immense amount of potential and I cannot wait to see what these guys end up growing into. They have left a lot of different doors open and they are really not limiting themselves to one style of music.