#chelsea-grin — Public Fediverse posts

Despised Icon – Shadow Work Review

By Owlswald

Widely regarded as one of the original architects of deathcore, Canada’s Despised Icon hardly needs an introduction. But just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two decades, here’s a brief introduction: back in 2002, when MySpace was all the rage and everyone had a friend named Tom, five dudes from Montreal dropped their debut LP, Consumed by Your Poison. Heavily influenced by the likes of Suffocation and Dying Fetus, these Canadians continued to hone their crushing sound on 2005’s The Healing Process by injecting metalcore and hardcore elements into their deathly framework. This unique formula culminated with their third LP, The Ills of Modern Man (2007)—the crown jewel of their discography that made Despised Icon deathcore royalty. The rest, they say, is history. Fast forward 18 years and, following a hiatus and three subsequent albums, the group has now readied their seventh LP, Shadow Work. So, dust off that windbreaker and lace up your best pair of New Balance kicks; it’s time to dive into Shadow Work.

In typical Despised Icon fashion, the opening title track instantly rips one’s jaw from its joints with a strong, technical launch. Leading the assault is Éric Jarrin and Ben Landreville’s signature pitch-shifted guitar squeals (a staple since 2019’s Purgatory), which, alongside rapid-fire tremolo scales, synchronize perfectly with Alex Pelletier’s blistering rhythms and Sebastien Piché’s grinding bass to fuel the album’s heavy, frenetic passages. The dual-headed vocal attack from Alex Erian and Steve Marois sounds as strong as ever, alternating raspy screams, slam-style pig squeals and hardcore chants that add a sharp, aggressive edge. Guest spots from Matthew Honeycutt (Kublai Khan TX), Scott Ian Lewis (Carnifex) and Tom Barber (Chelsea Grin) compliment Erian and Marois’ delivery but ultimately land with mixed results. Shadow Work’s powerful first half (“Shadow Work” through “The Apparition”) proves Despised Icon can still execute with the same ferocity as on past efforts. Conversely, Shadow Work’s energy wanes toward the end with formulaic pit anthems (“Obsessive Compulsive Disaster,” “Fallen Ones”) settling into a cliché hardcore spirit, though the record’s strongest material warrants repeat listens.

The first half of Shadow Work delivers a powerful blend of technical proficiency and a dash of genre experimentation before the album settles into a more formulaic hardcore groove. “Death Of An Artist” is a straight-up, drum-driven banger that introduces new wrinkles like clean vocals, dissonant high leads and a tasteful thrash and death eeriness that adds fresh flavor to Despised Icon’s well-known formula. Similarly, “The Apparition” is a relentless burner, injecting elements of symphonic death and black metal while maintaining the group’s core sound. Across the album’s succinct 37 minutes, monolithic breakdowns are plentiful—tense builds frequently give way to gut-punching beatdowns replete with fret slides (“Shadow Work”), air raid sirens (“The Apparition”) and stutter-step riffing (“Death of an Artist”), delivering a seismic release and an irresistible urge to pit.

However, Shadow Work hits a predictable wall at its midpoint, slumping into an over-reliance on tropey, Hatebreed-adjacent, inspirational anthems. Characterized by pervasive gang vocals, two-step riffs, and cheesy lyrical themes, tracks like “Fallen Ones,” “Obsessive Compulsive Disaster,” and “Reaper” feel less about pushing Despised Icon’s established deathcore boundaries and more about catering to the masses, thereby detracting from Shadow Work’s initial aggression. While Scott Ian Lewis’ gruff, thrashy vocal textures on “In Memoriam” effectively add a new element and the raucous “Omen of Misfortune” or “ContreCoeur” offer relief, Despised Icon’s heavy reliance on clichéd, tough-guy hardcore vocal cadences and themes holds Shadow Work back. For instance, lines like “From the ground up, never gave up, from the gutter to the surface” (“Reaper”) leans too far into its hardcore roots. Even the otherwise stronger early track “Over My Dead Body” is hampered by a cheesy hardcore/nu-metal feel in its bridge, its jarring cadence and Honeycutt’s yelling of “bitch” further exposing Shadow Work’s central weakness.1

Shadow Work is a good record marred by frustrating dualities. The first half unleashes the punishing, technical ferocity and syncopated slams that cement Despised Icon’s legacy as godfathers of deathcore. Yet, Shadow Work’s potential is sacrificed in the latter half, by leaning too hard on formulaic, predictable hardcore anthems. By repeatedly prioritizing comfortable clichés over their trademark sound, Despised Icon ultimately delivers an uneven album that only teases at the complete savagery fans know these legends are still more than capable of delivering.

Rating: Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Websites: despisedicon.com | facebook.com/despisedicon
Releases Worldwide: October 31st, 2025

#2025 #30 #CanadianMetal #Carnifex #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #DespisedIcon #Devourment #DyingFetus #Hatebreed #KublaiKhanTX #NuclearBlast #Oct25 #Review #Reviews #ShadowWork #Suffocation

Psycho-Frame – Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother Review

By Dear Hollow

Deathcore doesn’t give a shit. There was a moment when bands like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail attempted to make deathcore more accessible to other metal fans, incorporating blackened/symphonic textures or nu-metal influences. However terrible, solid, milquetoast, or well-intentioned you found it, that’s not the spirit of deathcore. Psycho-Frame has steadily been building a fanbase around their particularly unhinged take on deathcore with the release of 2023 EPs Remote God Seeker and Automatic Death Protocol, and we’re finally faced with a full-length debut: Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother. But don’t expect heavyhandedness – expect just heavy. Dumb heavy. Basically, the music for the sellout. Get those fists swingin’, Hot Topic frequenters! We’re goin’ to the mall.

Psycho-Frame embodies a trend in deathcore that is layered in nostalgia. Fearing that the style has lost its teeth, bands like the nation-spanning six-piece1 embrace the days of MySpace (think old-school Chelsea Grin or Bring Me the Horizon). It’s raw, groovy, and devastating, brandishing a brand wavering between thick-ass breakdowns settling on the ocean floor and lightning-fast blastbeats and unhinged technical thrills. Psycho-Frame otherwise benefits from a two-vocal attack, with Mike Sugars relying on a tough Frankie Palmeri bark attack while Jonathan Whittle offers fierce shrieks, horrific bellows, and the occasional pig squeal. It’s big, dumb fun that doesn’t overstay its welcome, embracing a savage edge contrary to contemporary acts off the same ilk: the rawness of Killing of a Sacred Deer or the melodic technicality of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Psycho-Frame emerges as the elite, its loud and ouchy production amped to louder and ouchier, its vocal attack barbaric and ominous, and its songwriting whiplash-inducing. It’s everything you love – and loathe – about deathcore.

There’s little nuance in Salvation Laughs – if it’s thoughtful songwriting and careful construction you’re after, Psycho-Frame ain’t it. It doesn’t have a lick of the tragedy its title implies because, remember, deathcore doesn’t give a shit. It recalls the chaos of This is Exile-era Whitechapel, The Cleansing-era Suicide Silence, or self-titled Chelsea Grin in its chunky viciousness and stonewalled rigidity. Neck-snapping tempo shifts are a norm, downtempo Black Tongue chugdowns assaulting your ears one second before ravaging them with ripping blastbeats and shredding riffs. Riffiness is a trait not often expounded upon by deathcore, but it appears often throughout Salvation Laughs, giving an unexpected head-bobbing groove and pinch harmonics (“Blueprints for Idol Genocide,” “Endless Agonal Devotion”), jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry that recalls Beneath the Massacre and pairs neatly with numbskull density (“Apocalypse Through Lysergic Possession”), while slam’s gurgling lurch a la Ingested adds nice sonic depravity (“Filleted and Fucked,” “Still Water Salvation”). Each member offers his best, the dual shrieks and roars commanding charisma, the guitars offering flaying technicality and caveman knuckle-dragging meatheadedness equally, bass holding up the sound amid the fray, and drums retain a sharp metallic ring that adds to the unhinged quality Psycho-Frame possesses.

For the same reasons, some will love Psycho-Frame, others will understandably loathe it. In many ways, it feels like the insanity of mid-2000s deathcore distilled into a bullying thirty-eight minutes. It’s relentless, it’s over-the-top, and perfect to make frowny faces at while you windmill your way through the pit. That being said, some parts of the album are guiltier than others: when groove dominates, the result is an insane little number, but when that’s toned down to channel Suicide Silence, it sounds pitifully stale (“The Portal,” “BLACK_WAVE II”). Furthermore, there are short-lived spoken word samples scattered throughout the album, which provide more of a blush than the creepiness factor they are attempting to instill. But apart from the nitpicks, for nearly all the reasons mentioned in the paragraph above, Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can be the thorn in a metalhead’s side – Psycho-Frame is truly an apt representative of deathcore.

For better or worse, Psycho-Frame is deathcore, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s big and dumb, overly loud and obnoxious, with enough groove, rawness, and wonky tricks to carry its dual vocal attack into something resembling enjoyment. It’s a low-ceiling, low-floor situation, because Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother can either bring some fun into your day or utterly ruin it. I had fun with Psycho-Frame because of its refreshing simplicity and relentless brutality – but it’s still a cautionary tale.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed:
Label: Sharptone Records
Websites: psychoframedc.bandcamp.com | psychoframe.com | facebook.com/psychoframedeathcore
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #BeneathTheMassacre #BlackTongue #BringMeTheHorizon #ChelseaGrin #Deathcore #Ingested #Jul25 #KillingOfASacredDeer #LornaShore #PsychoFrame #Review #Reviews #SalvationLaughsInTheFaceOfAGrievingMother #SharpToneRecords #SlammingDeathcore #SlaughterToPrevail #SuicideSilence #ThusSpokeZarathustra #Whitechapel

“Don't see me for the things I've done
Witness me for what I've become”

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Today In Metal History 🤘 July 8th, 2024🤘 EMPEROR, CRIMSON GLORY, QUIET RIOT, HELLOWEEN, JUDAS PRIEST

https://bravewords.com/news/today-in-metal-history-july-8th-2024-emperor-crimson-glory-quiet-riot-helloween-judas-priest

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Album Review: CHELSEA GRIN Suffer In Heaven
"From start to finish, it represents the peak of what they—and deathcore as a whole—can do."

https://metalinjection.net/reviews/album-review-chelsea-grin-suffer-in-heaven

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CHELSEA GRIN, CARNIFEX, LEFT TO SUFFER & OV SULFUR Announce North American Tour
Kicking off this April.

https://metalinjection.net/tour-dates/chelsea-grin-carnifex-left-to-suffer-ov-sulfur-announce-north-american-tour

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