Every Time I Die never fails to get me in a party kind of mood, probably just because of how amazingly energetic their live show is. I walked away from their show having been spat on by singer Keith Buckley, who has a penchant for on-stage spitting acrobatics. ETID's music measures up to their frenzied live shows, it fills me with energy and the desire to run around aimlessly punching at the air. New Junk Aesthetic is ETID's fifth album, and although it's not my favourite album by the band, it has grown on me since it first dropped.
I think that I first dismissed the album because of the inevitable comparison I made to the band's excellent 2007 album The Big Dirty. But really, their isn't much change between the two. The blues-soaked hardcore guitar riffs are still in full effect, Keith's lyrics are still as clever as ever (something I want to attribute to his background as a high school english teacher) and their rock n'roll approach to metalcore is still kicking much ass. The reason why I don't think it's as good as The Big Dirty is because many of the breakdowns sound a little bit too similar to one another. And although Keith's bluesy, southern rock influenced singing voice often makes the difference between a good ETID song and a great one (like on Wanderlust for example), it sometimes sounds like he's forced it into a song. His clean singing voice overtop of the jumbled riffs on Host Disorder doesn't work for me, and it quickly became my least favourite track on the album.
On a more positive note, there are enough fantastic whisky-soaked bluesy hardcore riffs on this album to make you feel hung over after a full listen. In addition, the lyrics are excellent. Keith has always been one of my favourite hardcore lyricists. His cleverly put, Nietzsche-referencing lines like, "there is nothing to see here, and nothing gazes back at me," or, "if life is pointless then point taken, say amen" are examples of why I find ETID to be some of the better lyricists in metalcore. Because the rather depressing nature of the lyrics is paired with the rock n'roll party atmosphere of the music itself, ETID gives off the vibe that they play their music in a self-medicated kind of way. Just like how blues artists sing of their struggles and personal demons, this music can also serve as a way of exercising those demons.
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