Review by Saxy S for Wage War - Stigma (2024)

We have once again returned to the world of late 2010s metalcore bands that I have no association with. My ties with melodic metalcore were severed around 2008-09 when deathcore started to become super popular and began to dominate the Warped Tour scene. I found myself drifting further away from that clique as I continued to dig myself into more progressive music, as well as building my foundations of jazz music. So, Wage War were a band that completely passed me by during the 2010s. Their debut, Blueprints, was generally favoured I guess, but I couldn’t tell you anything about that album or any of the subsequent releases by the band.

And despite the quality of the music found within STIGMA, I can give Wage War credit for not releasing the same barebones, meat-and-potatoes metalcore album again. This album has some artistic growth on it, most notably in its industrial and synthetic elements. STIGMA does not maintain a static format throughout the entire runtime, and I can give credit where it is due.

Unfortunately, that is where the credit to Wage War ends because wow is this album generic. Modern metalcore gets a bad reputation for being painfully generic and uninspired and I can only imagine the critics saying that were staring directly at Wage War while they said it. STIGMA commits the cardinal sin of making every breakdown sound like it was composed on an AI bot with its painful buildup, always plateauing on the same tired callout by the vocals, before transitioning into a clearly chopped up metalcore breakdown. I hear more variety on a lofi hip hop collaboration!

The sequencing is even worse. Wage War are clearly tired of the same old stuff, which is why they added industrial elements into this album. But song transitions do not work well at all. It is almost an issue of STIGMA trying to do way too much. “MAGNETIC” is okay, but how do you pair it with “NAIL5?” It is such a baffling change of style and direction that somehow made “MAGNETIC” less enjoyable. And then it happens again at the end of the record, with “HAPPY HUNTING” into “HELLBENT.”

And then there is the mixing. First and foremost, the guitars sound tinny and sharp, rendering much of the power required for these breakdowns to work mute. And the cacophony of sound during the albums sung choruses is mind numbing. How can one listen to the hodgepodge of noise on “IN MY BLOOD,” notice that the vocals are being swamped, and say “yeah this sounds good, print it?”

The fall of modern metalcore is quite a shame, but not surprising if you examine it for more than thirty minutes (almost the amount of time it takes you to listen to this whole album). I wish that more modern acts would look back towards the early 2000s or beyond and really learn what it takes to write a good hook. Because where we are at this moment, STIGMA by Wage War is a breakdown album with the occasional verse interlude. If not this, then at least try something a little bit more off the rails. I mean, Reliqa released an album this year that is basically progressive nu metal. I recommend sticking with that.

Best Songs: TOMBSTONE, HELLBENT