THE WORD ALIVE - HARD RESET
The Word Alive have been around for along time and they have found their place within the scene with hard work, resilience and the ability to adapt. After countless releases the band share their seventh, Hard Reset, an album that will be exactly that - a reset of what we know and already love about the band.
When talking about the album vocalist Telle Smith said, “We wanted to take the essence of the band—the heaviness, the atmospherics, the experimental elements, and the melodic side—and put everything into one album.” In an interview with The Word Alive, Smith gave us a rundown of each collaboration; why they were chosen and how they developed, so we were excited to hear the album and experience some of those features across the 13-track collection of songs.
The album explodes into existence with ‘The Word Alive Is Dead…’, letting us know a transformation is on the way. Needless to say, they are nowhere near dead just reborn. The drums on this track are mesmerising and second only to Smith's vocals that emphasise lyrically that it is indeed not the end! This is a great and strong track to start the album on and sets us up for what's to come.
Following that splendid start is the title track which has a great chorus, melodic with wonderful vocals of the clean variety. Whilst everything else is down and dirty from the drums to the guitars. The chorus does stand out against the fast-paced verses which spit at you beat by beat and word by word.
Bad Omens take some time off from their current world domination to jump on the next track, or at least vocalist Noah Sebastian does on track ‘One Of Us’. The joy of this song is its hook, some particularly perfect riffs and Sebastian's vocals of course. They may even be better than Smiths, who makes no secret that he chose his collaborations to showcase talent, and there is a lot of talent on this album.
Other stand-out tracks include ‘Slow Burn’ and ‘A New Empty’ featuring Phillip Strand of Normandie. Smith picked this collaboration because he felt the band needed some exposure and because of the great vocal possibilities. Those not familiar with Normandie may be surprised but for fans or those who have heard them before the influences are there to hear. ‘Hate Me’, featuring Loveless, is anthemic and the last track ‘War With You’ featuring From First To Last proves a theatrical ending complete with strings for an album with no skips.
All in all, Hard Reset is a great record, and stands out in the band's discography as an interesting listen, playing around a little more than on previous releases. It is an album you can listen to as a long-time fan and enjoy the progression or come in with fresh ears having not heard of them before and enjoy the collection equally. The lineup changes have obviously had an effect on the creative process and it shows but not for better or worse, more of a side step than one up or down.
Cat Wiltshire
★★★★★