Epitaph Records

A follow-up from two critical earning records places a challenge upon an artist’s next batch of releases. These albums from Parkway Drive’s Reverence went gold and their live album was released nearly two years later, Viva La Underdogs which would garner $61,000 and a correlating documentary. So when their 2022 album, Darker Still would lay out either a mere shell of their success or to become even greater. With this piece, I will go track by track to see if this record is one of these spectrums. Each of these songs will be rated in intervals of one to five, one being the worst and five being the best.

Ground Zero:  5

The first track of the album establishes both the lyrical and instrumental basis of this album. I strongly believe that when an opening song does this, it creates a positive start to the album as a whole and does its job of administering a great song as a whole. The principles established are anthemic choruses, with chugging rhyme guitars and leads creating melodic architecture for said choruses. Also, Ground Zero establishes the narrative concepts of the destruction of society, this song being a statement of the tension before its downfall.

Like Napalm: 5

The continuation of the groundwork from the first track. It is somewhat of a copy-and-paste from Ground Zero with more of an anthemic approach to the song with fewer melodic leads. However, this song continues the dilapidation of society and the slow death of the purity within itself.

Glitch:5

The third track of the album is a departure from their well-established sound, with a more anthemic take on the metalcore sound. While also a conception for the middle part of the album where they get creative with their sound.  For the more groove-oriented guitars and drums work on top of an inverted take of their choruses. Whereas for instance, the previous pieces have a chorus with harder vocals and more melodic instrumentals. However, this song reverses this philosophy to heavier instrumentals with melodic and beautiful vocals. The lyrical concepts take more of a fantastical take on the vagueness of a societal fallout.

The Greatest Fear: 5

As a continuation of the more tentative side of the record, The Greatest Fear acclimatizes to a symphonic approach. Combining the latter with their more common metalcore style creates a really coherent song and one of the best songs within the entire album. This song underlines the Ozymandia-like plummet of the world within the context of religion and a hierarchical takeover to a darker entity.

Darker Still: 5

One of my top songs from Parkway’s discography is Chronos, a melodic anthem combining the rawest feeling songs both lyrically and symphonic instrumentality. The first three minutes of the song are based around an acoustic production with more emphasis on the lyrical concepts. Speaking of, this song touches on an afterlife and leaves behind the memories of society to grant consummation anew. This track also begins to drop its lyrical ideologies to the soul itself. Which has been more of an idiomatic stance to this point of the project. Within the final minutes, the song bursts into an emotional over-encumbrance of melodic leads and powerful screams with a symphonic backing of strings.

Imperial Heretic:4

The follow-up to the absolute banger of Darker Still, revives the sound of Reverence’s  Prey, with a more anthemic take and the combination of fuller vocals. I liked this song, I think since it doesn’t have melodic leads in comparison to Prey, they kind of deliver on a more cessionary product. Even then, the whole idea of these more anthemic tracks does kind of lose my attention in comparison to the formats of Void or Chronos, but right now the honeymoon hasn’t ended so I am still really digging this track. The narrative beats cover an observation from the mind of a rebellious entity and why they act upon their principles. From a Phaedoian standpoint, pushing against their negative urges.

If A God Can Bleed:5

This is only a couple-minute song and is used for more of an interlude but I love the applications of these tracks with Parkway’s albums. It is more of a spoken word piece, but really shows vocalist Winston McCall’s technopaegnia or poetic skillfulness. This again, is a statement of the downfall of the entity that has caused the societal fallout, or within the essay of the soul, the effectiveness of the defense that negative urges upon one’s psyche. Overall, it is very simplistic with just a catchy hook and unique instrumentality, with usages of the more grungier tonalites.

Soul Bleach:3

Probably one of my least favorite tracks off of this record, Soul Bleach completely deducts the build-up and foundation laid from If A God Can Bleed. Not to say it has no redeeming qualities, but it just pushes the tired (by the eight track). It just comes on as too heavy but this is obviously just purely on timing.

Stranger: 3

The Stranger is an interlude that uses a generated voice, which is coded like an Atari 2600-esque sound quality, also known as a single-bit monaural tone fed into a four-bit TIA. Overall, it lays a great narrative and instrumental foundation for its next track.

Land of the Lost: 4

This song starts with the previous interlude’s sound with a similar voice. It then snaps into the anthemic metalcore style that Parkway is best known for. However they take more of a slower time signature, kind of combining the Greatest Fear’s style with the kind of tired feeling of the latter. The lyrical concept talks about the purity of an individual’s soul and mind, while also the obvious downfall of religion within a failing society.

From The Heart Of Darkness: 5

The finale takes more of a different approach to their overall style and structure within songwriting. The verses are used with an antiphonal philosophy ( or a call-and-respond) throughout the song. While changing the choruses to match a darker anthemic style reflected in previous songs like Crushed. This song is a great way to end this jam-packed record and is a great example of the dénouement.