Review by Saxy S for END - Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face (2020)

The debut album from END is pure, unfiltered, hell of the most direct metalcore variety. Typically metalcore albums don't make waves in my section of the metal spectrum, but I feel I need to make an exception for this.

And part of the reason why is my personal disinterest in the genre, and mathcore in particular. Too many times I've heard metalcore bands that use the whacky time signatures and tempo changes to show off a technical proficiency that would kill in a live setting, but ends up sounding forced and the overall tunes sound like they are devoid of any inter-connectivity or subsequent themes. END actually manages to take that unhinged madness and turn it into something that makes a lot of sense as a framing device. This albums lyrical content is entrenched in Gothic themes, nihilism and rage and to some extent, I get it. While the poetry is mostly vanilla, it serves as a decent framework for the music itself and I can appreciate that.

Unfortunately it's one of the only things I can really get into on this album. Just because I appreciate the frenetic nature of the lyrics and how it meshes well with the mathcore style, that doesn't mean I have to like it! The songs are held together with a shoestring, they have very little in the way of melodic ideas and hooks to make them memorable at all, many of the hardcore and breakdown ideas are repeated multiple times on the record, and the vocals suffer from a lot of post-compression. I mean, I didn't like it on Code Orange's last record, but at least it kind of made sense there.

If you fall into the demographic that would enjoy this hellaish soundscape and crushing breakdowns, I imagine you will find a lot more enjoyment out of this than me. END's Splinters from an Ever-Changing Face is a straightforward metalcore album that will get the people moving at a live show (when we can finally go to those again), but doesn't really do anything else for me outside of some visceral songwriting.