The Amity Affliction “Everyone Loves You…Once You Leave Them” Album Review

In the present days of alternative music, every band’s fanbase can be divided into three groups; fans who want them to grow and evolve, fans who want them to stick to one sound or be labeled as “sell-outs”, and fans who unconditionally love everything they put out, no matter how much or how little it has changed. For Australian metalcore group The Amity Affliction, their attempts at progressing their sound have become a bit…counterproductive. Whichever kind of fan group you fall into, no one can really tell what this band is trying to achieve anymore.

After five albums of pure metalcore, the band finally tried something new with their sixth record Misery in 2018. They started fusing electronic and pop elements into their style, and frontman Joel Birch began using clean vocals to duet with vocalist/bassist Ahren Stringer. This sometimes worked out well (e.g. “Ivy (Doomsday)”, and other times was a disaster (e.g. title track “Misery”). Despite the album’s flaws, though, it built a bridge for them to cross over into new territories. Unfortunately, with their seventh album Everyone Loves You…Once You Leave Them, they burned that bridge on their way back, with only a few random pop elements that somehow made it to the metalcore side. While some of the tracks came out strong, others sound like Amity is going through an identity crisis.

Opening the album is the menacing “Coffin” with lofi screams over ominous keys and chugging guitars. It slowly builds your anticipation, leaving an effective first impression that unfortunately doesn’t last long. I enjoyed “All My Friends Are Dead” at first listen, but once I heard how similar “Forever” is, it turned me off to both of them. Using falsetto “ohhhh”s as a cop-out every once in a while is one thing, but when you start the choruses of two different fast-paced songs on the same album with it, it sounds like either you’ve gotten lazy with songwriting, or you’ve just run out of ideas.

One thing Amity know how to do well is write soft piano intros that instantly engage audiences, and then explode into a booming uproar. They bring this strategy back with “Soak Me in Bleach”, and maintain that suspenseful tone from start to finish. “Born to Lose” is another of the tighter songs on the heavy side of Everyone Loves You. The pummeling drums backing Birch’s screams create a feeling of surrounding intensity that leads into the seething breakdown that old fans will love. Other tracks like “All I Do is Sink” and “Catatonia” don’t have much going for them, and just sound like jumbles of recycled material from earlier albums. Of course, some metalcore purist fans might appreciate that.

Guitarist Dan Brown ignites some heartfelt solos in “Baltimore Rain” and “Fever Dream”, with his warm yet fierce tone making the tunes that much more soul-stirring. Just like in their past work, Brown gives it his all when he gets his time to shine – which is not nearly often enough. His tasty riffing is like the band’s secret weapon; it is only utilized on occasion to achieve a certain climactic effect, and on the first listen you never know when or if to expect it. If he played more leads throughout the album to complement the vocals rather than be overshadowed by them 90% of the time, Amity could easily broaden their sound and exceed expectations. At their seventh album, it seems they only don’t take advantage of this because they’ve gotten too comfortable with a formula that has started going stale.

On the poppier side of the album are “Aloneliness” and “Just Like Me”, the latter being the stronger of the two. The trading of vocals between Birch’s dispirited “I think I’ve already lost” and Stringer’s ironic “dada dada dadadada”s divulges a cynical acceptance of defeat. The mellow whistles of the vocal melody provide almost a feeling of relief, conveying a bittersweet sense of peace found in acquiescence. In “Aloneliness”, Birch demonstrates some of his best clean vocal work yet. The switch from Stringer’s calm voice over light snapping to Birch’s raspy tenderness over building drums is a nice touch, but the chorus doesn’t hold up as well. The repetition of the same two lines drags on with a bland, unchanging melody making it hard to get through without losing patience. This ruined the whole song for me and it’s become a natural reflex to hit the skip button when it comes on.

Although Everyone Loves You… is not all bad, it doesn’t seem like The Amity Affliction were ready to write a new record. Rather, it seems more like they just wanted to release more music for the sake of continuing their pattern of dropping an album every other year, whether they have something new to say or not. Instead of pushing themselves to stay on that schedule, they should push themselves to step out of their formulaic comfort zone and seek out new sources of inspiration – because at this point, they’re writing the same songs over and over again.

Favorite tracks: Soak Me in Bleach, Just Like Me