Spiritbox - Eternal Blue album review

The debut record from Spiritbox, “Eternal Blue” is finally here, yet in some ways, it feels like we’ve had a record from them for quite awhile. Canadian songwriting duo, married couple, ex-iwrestledabearonce members Courtney LaPlante and Micheal Stringer have been releasing music under the Spiritbox name since 2017 with a mostly single based focus. Those singles gained quick traction but nothing as major as just how viral “Holy Roller” was with its iconic Midsommer-influenced video and LaPlante’s live studio videos on the song. The success of these tracks landed the band not only notoriety and respect in their scene but also a number of festival and supporting tour slots as well. The rollout of this project goes as far as a year back and six singles, 50% of the track listing, were released before the actual release date.

The first single, “Holy Roller,” though we didn’t know it at the time, may just be the perfect metalcore song. The track opens with mild strumming and the anticipation building spoken word;

“Holy roller sits in the garden we fled, blood into wine take my body instead.”

All of a sudden it comes in with brutal screams, intense guitar chugging. The use of a guitar speed up here and there just to amp up anxiety, the synthesizer that’s always present like howling wind in the background, everything is perfectly placed and crafted. Eventually we get to a breakdown where LaPlante bellows;

“When I die you won’t pray for me, that’s when I learn to cut my ties.”

As well the perfectly synched instrumental behind it that blows me away everytime. No shade at all to Ryo Kinoshita of Crystal Lake, who recorded a guest vocal for a re-record of the song prior to this album, but I’m really glad the original is here; there's nothing like the intensity in the original. There’s a recurring theme on the record of every song transitioning into the next except this one. Nothing plays it in, nothing plays it out, but it’s such a special track that it doesn’t matter and if you knew the song before you heard the full-length, you’ll still shut up and listen. This track has played such a pivotal and viral part of the scene in it’s short lifespan that I know given ten years, whatever the current state of the record is, “Holy Roller” will at least be a classic. It sincerely is better everytime I hear it and I’m not sure how.

“Constance” also hit the community in a big way but in less of a rager way and in more of an emotional one. With its massive hook, huge drum fills and a narration about dementia that hits home for a lot of people, it's hard to quantify how massive this track is in just one paragraph. Its outro really sticks out to me as well as it breaks down slowly and gets more unnerving until it finally ends the entire record with just a few piano strokes. In a way it almost emulates succumbing to the symptoms of the condition it’s bringing attention to.

“Circle with Me” was, at the time of its release, my favorite single of the year, but it too has gotten even better in the context of the record. Something we’ll talk about a lot more as we dive deeper into the review is the use of sound scaping and atmosphere and its prevalent here but in its own way. There isn’t much use of the synth until the breakdown kicks; the verses have that spacey sound to them using only your classic guitar-bass-drum set-up, and at the breakdown, the synth manages to be the most dominate instrument while still being heavy. There is some use of guitar chords with the mosh call of;

“I held the power of a dying sun, I climbed the altar and I took my place as God.”

Leading into a more traditional breakdown but the unique ways each instrument is used is something to behold. The lyricism that covers the whole track to me is the best on the whole LP as they give a narration of your darkness or vices tempting you, whatever they may be, using the metaphor of birds of prey inviting you to join in their hunt.

From there we heard “Secret Garden,” which is more of a spaced out track, somewhere between heavy and heart wrenching, that uses some very clever sound design techniques. The use of the fast paced bassline, atmospheric keys and a sort of half-djent half-artpop structure grabbed listeners attention fast. There is a use of synthesizer in the chorus that makes the whole thing sound mystical and with LaPlante’s haunting delivery it really paints an emotional picture. The lyrics tell a narrative that I don’t even think I could truly quantify to you. What I do know is that the;

“Nobody waits for me, I know, nobody takes from me what I grow.”

Hits me emotionally every time especially in the last leg of the track where the delivery is changed up quite a bit.

The final single, “Hurt You,” would feel at home on any metal radio station played after a Slipknot track with it’s heavy bass, screamed verses and harsh yet clean chorus and an intro riff that sounds like the score of a carnival played on a buzzsaw. To me this was the weakest of the singles and probably least creative and a lower point on the tracklist but in all honesty Spiritbox’s worst song is pretty far above most other band’s best songs.

All of this and we haven’t even turned the record on yet which opens with “Sun Killer,” a piece of symphonic metal that demonstrates Spiritbox’s mastery of spacing out intensity. Every single section sees this song amping up just a little bit more until LaPlante’s delivery of;

“Tell me the waves won’t rise”

Ushers in the first true metalcore performance behind her at the perfect moment. She doesn’t even finish getting the word “rise” out before the band erupts behind her. After that there is use of this auto-tuned whispering that we’ll see a lot of in the record to come that gives a chant of;

“Sun killer sing me to sleep”

In a very slow deliberate way until those very lyrics front a massive breakdown. So again, that mastery of intensity shines through, inching ever heavier before slowing down to almost a halt and coming in as intense as it ever was.

“Yellowjacket” has the album’s only feature, Sam Carter of Architects. Carter sounds right at home here to the point that if you isolated his verse or the song’s chorus, which he delivers, and told me it was his band I’d 100% believe you. It uses that signature Architects brand of heavy but never quite hits the realms of over the top. None of this to say that there isn’t Spiritbox branding in here. LaPlante’s auto-tuned whispering is used in duality to Carter’s screams and the only point she’s doing any other style is when she’s screaming along with him. Even then! Her spoken word is still layered behind it.

From here, “The Summit” takes us on a detour from the heavy, in-your-face metalcore with a more laid-back atmospheric cut. The bass-driven verses led by LaPlante’s more subtle vocal delivery makes for a nice breather. Even the choruses are instrumentally as heavy as any point prior to this on the record but led by the sailing delivery of;

“The venom is what keeps me alive”

They make for a stark contrast of heavy, yet haunting. There’s even a breakdown here but with both singing and screaming layered delivering the same lyrics pulling you in whichever direction you’d rather go and taking that hike with you, with “Secret Garden” being at the peak of the journey.

At this point, with the way the record had been going and the fact that it’s an even number of tracks, I expected the halfway mark, the track before “Holy Roller” to be another lowkey or atmospheric cut. “Silk in the Strings” totally betrayed my expectations however. For about one note we get a hint of that but then it quickly turns hostile before it really even kicks in. This is another brilliant use of sound scaping and production on the band and team’s part as everything about this one sounds stressful. We get that spacey use of synth again but also guitar playing that sounds like bugs buzzing all around you and what I want to say is the sounds of voices in the background. This song would be more at home with a “Holy Roller” but it isn’t as intense and makes a good bridge between the two moods.

Back in May, LaPlante took to Twitter to gauge the reaction to “Secret Garden” and asked her followers if they had any questions about the record. I asked her what song most excited her to finally be out in the world and she had expressed excitement toward the reaction of the title track. At the first few listens through of the whole thing I didn’t quite understand the appeal but then it hit me. If you isolated the instrumental to this track and told someone it was akin to “Holy Roller” they’d likely believe you. If you isolated the vocals to this track and told someone it was more in line with songs like “Constance” they’d believe you. What you get instead though is every mood present on the entire spectrum the record offers conjoined into just four minutes and it doesn’t sound a lick out of place. It truly is a special moment on the LP and I’m ashamed it took me almost two weeks to catch onto the band’s vision for this one.

“We Live in a Strange World” is by far my favorite moment on the entire project. It has a Kanye West inspired production and message with every verse adding just a small step. In the beginning of the track it's just LaPlante and programmed drums, then we get some atmosphere with a lo-fi strumming and then finally the drop of the song turns it into a full band rock song and is literally ushered in with the line;

“If greatness leaves me alone I know I won’t recover, erase me, pace me, I’m waiting for the drop.”

I don’t think a moment has hit me quite like that in years. The song even progresses from there and we even hit a high, sailing vocal note that isn’t really like any other song on here. I have to admire too how the message of inspiration manages to not sound impersonal like so many hopecore tracks tend to be. Even the chorus’ line;

“You let the bastards grind you down, collapse a vein so you don’t drown.”

Speaks volumes as it’s reminding you that you’re down but you’re only doing it for your own survival. Something only someone who's gone through that can truly understand.

From there we get “Halcyon,” a track that would fit more at home with “Hurt You” on a radio station like Octane just fitting a more mellow mood. Not that it’s boring or not well made, it just has more of a traditional sound and doesn’t have a substantial amount of creativity to dissect. Something nice this track does offer is a very abrupt but exciting transition into “Circle with Me.”

That’s all the tracks on here and I know I didn’t really point out any flaws or nitpicks and that’s honestly because I couldn’t really find any save for the fact that this isn’t really pioneering a new genre or anything like that. However, to me, there are two types of great records; Records that reinvent the shape of their scene around them and ones that are such a grand demonstration of the craft that it doesn’t matter. If I gave scores in my reviews I’m pretty confident I would call this a 10/10. I am someone who can get a little burnt out listening to what feels like one hundred albums a week especially when they’re heavy music and don’t always get to truly get to know the ones I enjoy. That being said this made me fall back in love with a metal subset and I truly spent the time and got to know this album inside and out. I think what makes this so special is there are moments on here that catch me off guard even now. There were three separate times during the first listen where I questioned if what I was listening to was the best song I had ever heard. All that and despite the fact that 50% of the record was released beforehand, the placing and transitions into the singles made it a fresh experience anyway. So, I would say that the four years it took to master whatever craft Spiritbox needed to get this record out was worth the wait.