Dynamic and nostalgic with room for improvement
Vacant Voice are a metalcore band from Racine, Wisconsin. Their members include Mikeal Dollak Posch (guitar and clean vocals), Brad Wilson (harsh vocals), Ethan Taylor (guitar), Austin Olson (bass) and Shane Murphy (drums). They have a humble side, describing themselves as “a fun congregation of realized melody and explosive walls of sound. No more, and no less.” At the same time, they have no intentions of being just another metalcore band, asserting they’re “an unparalleled experience in an all-too-easy to become static musical genre.” On June 23, they released their debut album, Cathartic Beauty, making their visions into reality.
Cathartic Beauty sits at a brisk 30 minutes in length, spread over eight tracks. Across the album, Vacant Voice present an accessible brand of metalcore which leans heavily towards the melodic post-hardcore aspects of the genre, complete with clean lo-fi instrumental sections, elevating choruses driven by power-chords, tag-teams between clean and harsh vocals that call back to 2000s screamo and more. The band also includes fierce modern metal influence in some songs, adding fire and freshness to their otherwise nostalgic sound. The band’s dynamic strategy leads to some very satisfying moments, but not every song on this album is created equal.
Cathartic Beauty begins with the title track, which enters on peaceful synths and clean guitar. These fade into the distance and in come worshipful singing and spaced-out drums which support the screams in the foreground. When the guitars and bass come in, they bring rich and moving emotion that fit the song’s title well, and things get even more interesting when the sad chords turn into demonic modern metal riffing, followed by a breakdown. One easy-to-ignore strength here are the drums, which give life to it and to other bangers on this record. The song is a strong opener and contains a fresh blend of sadness and savagery, though Wilson’s chant of “Life changes more than anything” and the return of the synths and clean guitar make the ending of the song less strong than it could have been. This unfortunately isn’t the last time that filler lyrics and unneeded clean instrumentals water a song down on this album.
Vacant Voice bump up the post-hardcore vibes on the second song, “Roscoe’s Violent Dreams.” The whole song oozes nostalgia, though the nasal vocal tone at some points and some parts where the tuning doesn’t ring quite as much on the clean middle section disrupts the mood. Thankfully, the melodic guitars and screaming that build up from there hit hard and transition into much better singing on the last verse and chorus. The song hits hard despite its shortcomings, and so does the third track “No Forever.” It brings the post-hardcore vibes just as hard as “Roscoe’s” and might have the catchiest chorus, but also has some sick metal riffing. Some aspects of the songwriting are very gripping and enjoyable, but not all of it feels as organic, especially the lofi instrumental ending which seems to cut the song off before its time.
Over the course of the tracklist, the freshness and richness in Cathartic Beauty gets more and more bogged down by unremarkable instrumentals and lackluster lyricism. The lowest point is the sixth track, “Detachment.” The song drops the post-hardcore of previous tracks to evoke modern metalcore (plenty of 0-0-0 action), which itself is no issue, but it comes with bland songwriting and uninspired lyrics, and the feature from Dayseeker’s Rory Rodriguez is hard to notice if you don’t know it’s there.
“Self-Surrender,” improves upon the mistakes of the previous track but doesn’t really shake things up or take the mood in a new direction. The closer, “Transience,” thankfully takes things in a refreshing direction, with some upbeat screamo energy and a little metal twist in the middle. Vacant Voice wisely choose to end the album on a strong guitar chord after the final chorus, no clean instrumental section needed.
This is an album with strengths and weaknesses, to be sure. Despite the bland songwriting and weak lyricism present in some tracks, Vacant Voice pull off an enjoyable and replayable blend of modern metalcore and nostalgic post-hardcore at several points here, and fans of either genre may enjoy those songs over and over. Considering that many bands as young as Vacant Voice would opt to start things off with some single releases or an EP before launching their first full-length, Cathartic Beauty is nothing to sneeze at. Hopefully the band can use their experiences recording it as fuel for greater achievements down the line.
