New Junk Aesthetic

by Pemberton Roach

Every Time I Die became one of America's more popular metalcore bands by injecting its unrelentingly brutal, snap-tight brand of heavy music with heavy doses of humor and Southern/stoner rock-style chugging guitar. New Junk Aesthetic, the group's debut on Epitaph Records (after a long tenure on indie Ferret Music), found the group further refining its signature approach with a new sonic clarity and an occasional focus on melodic hooks. That said, the Buffalo, NY-based combo remains bone-crushingly intense, with songs such as "The Marvelous Slut," "Organ Grinder," and "Who Invented the Russian Soldier" characterized by math rock-like stop-on-a-dime rhythmic shifts and vocalist Keith Buckley's surprisingly comprehensible throat-shedding. Other tracks, however, such as "Turtles All the Way Down" and first single "Wanderlust" draw a bit more from a traditional rock bag, with radio-ready, old-school, grunge-esque choruses, and catchy, relatively straightforward six-string riffs. Throughout, Every Time I Die sounds energized and passionate, delivering its blend of old and new sounds with a directness that gives the ferocious music an unusually broad appeal.