German metalcorers Escape from Wonderland put out their brand new album yesterday. After taking some time away during the pandemic, the band are back in full force with their first new music since their 2019 EP. I’m not at all familiar with the band outside a minute or so of one of the singles I checked out when getting the email through. I loved it, and I love the genre, so let’s dive right in!
The album builds perfectly with a synth-heavy intro to ‘Beyond Life’. The drums and guitars come in over the top, adding an almost power/symphonic metal tinge to it all. Then, all the synth drops out for the verse, the harsh vocals taking its place and making it into a brutal, awesome deathcore track. The low screams are insane and make it so fun and heavy. The synth comes back to add some great depth, and the clean vocals come in for the chorus to add another catchy, amazing element. The structure of the track is pretty simple, sadly not having much of a breakdown, though we do get a brief-yet-awesome guitar solo before the final chorus. This is a balls to the wall track that’s the perfect way to open an album like this!
‘Silver Linings’ explodes in with a HUGE riff, especially after the screams herald the drums coming in and doing a great job of wonderfully destroying your eardrums. The crushing verse is perfect, reminding me of modern Fit for a King or heavier I Prevail. The track stays heavy through a pretty catchy pre that had me banging my head something massive. It reminded me a lot of Lamb of God, which is definitely a good thing. And then of course we get the catchy, awesome, cleaner chorus. The bridge after the second chorus makes it all feel pretty epic thanks to the synths/strings, and then we get a MASSIVE breakdown, complete with a damn good ‘blegh’ to set it off. This was an amazing metalcore track, and easily makes our playlist.
A more stomping, almost nu-metal/industrial riff opens the latest single, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. The duelling screams in the verses were a nice touch, both low and higher ones. The low gutterals are a real highlight of the whole album. It makes everything so crushingly heavy in all the best ways. The bass-lead breakdown in the middle is another banger, especially with the ‘ee-oh’ callout scream. I also love that the track is heavy throughout. No room for cleans, just all screaming and massive riffs. It was the first track by the band that I checked out when I went to see if I wanted to do this review, and I’m a little addicted to it! Another that instantly makes our playlist!
A phat riff opens ‘Devil’s Witness’, a staple of the band at this point. The interplay between it and the lead melody from the synth was also awesome; some great writing. Some of the screams even reminded me a tad of Howard Jones, which I loved a lot. And the chorus this time was more gang vocal orientated, which made it somehow even more catchy. The cleans work so well here, making it more anthemic than melodic. A short build leads to a chuggy breakdown, building up more and more throughout into a huge final chorus. It’s another incredible song, and the third straight to make our playlist. And we still have the final single of the album up next…
Surprisingly enough, ‘Dissimulate’ is another banger of a song. It follows a similar formula as a lot of the other songs, crushing heaviness in the verses and a more clean, catchy, arena-filling chorus. The same could be said for ‘Hourglass’. Both are awesome yet pretty similar tracks.
Meanwhile tracks like ‘Sulfur’ and ‘Your Ghost’ take the opposite approach. The verses are slower and more subdued with the cleaner vocals, while the harsher ones come in for the pres or choruses. It somehow makes both tracks feel more ballad-like than the others. It’s awesome and breaks the album up well in the second half. However, both still have enough heavy, metalcore moments that it still very much feels like the same band.
Interestingly enough, after a short interlude track, the final song on the album is a Weeknd cover. It took me off guard; being completely unexpected. While I don’t particularly like him as a person, he’s a good songwriter, and this was a good, interesting cover of ‘Blinding Lights’. The heavier instrumentation and some screams were awesome, adding a whole new take on the track. I’m not a massive fan of having covers close an album, but this was a good track so I mind a hell of a lot less!
Overall: This was awesome! Considering I had never even heard of the band before, they have a HUGE new fan in me. I’m big into metalcore and this blended the modern and older sounds of the sub-genre together perfectly, while also sounding wholly unique. There isn’t a bad track on this album and there are a few I am already obsessed with and will be listening to a lot in the coming months. If anyone is a metal fan, they need to check out this album immediately.
The Score: 9/10