REVIEW: The Word Alive's "Hard Reset" via Thriller

Love them or hate them; The Word Alive are alternative metal titans. It’s always interesting to me how metal bands like this find themselves in places where they have a huge adoring following but a mutually agreed upon inconsistent discography. Their last record, Monomania, had mixed reception for its improved sonics that were gained by sacrificing any real originality. I personally had Monomania as a contention for my album of the year but saw it place quite low. Though I will say upon a revisit I did find some tracks to be pretty enjoyable but also not really anything I’m eager to go back to.

We open the record on “The Word Alive is Dead,” a song that sees a gradual build in heat and pretty standard lyrics welcoming the listeners to the record. I feel like I should be against this in theory but honestly I welcome meta ideas especially in a genre like alternative metal, which at its best isn’t taking itself too seriously. In practice, however, I find this track in particular to be quite weak. The lyrics on this one are so forced and while I find that as a composition this does mostly go over okay sonically we get a little unnaturally heavy toward the end of the song and it becomes abundantly clear where we’re going from here.

It’s not the end, tell a friend, soon the show will begin

It is incredible to me how a band can write an entire forty-seven minute record with absolutely zero substance. The title track that follows that intro sounds like an AI’s impression of what people think The Word Alive sound like and makes Telle Smith’s promise of this being the record where they did everything they knew the fans liked from each other release sound almost like a threat rather than a promise. The Linkin Park inspired chorus, the solo section, everything that ever made this band fun is gone and replaced with a shell of its former self. Like I said I didn’t really dislike Monomania but it didn’t quite feel this shallow.

From there we get “Strange Love” a song that almost goes over well but only because it does everything it can to be a safe, radio ready rock song with an easy to recall chorus. However when the track shifts to the next one, “One of Us,” you start to realize it's all the same song again and again. In fact in my notes taking session listening to the record it took until “Static Rain” to feel like we deviated at all from the formula and even then all we get is somewhat fresh production choices but I can’t really give that to any member of this band as much as I can producer Hiram Hernandez. Every song on this thing just follows the same, safe verse-chorus-bridge formula and it makes absolutely none of it noteworthy.

That safety net is only extended into the features on the record all of which are completely predictable for an Octane record in 2023 and all utilized in the exact same cookie cutter fashion. “One of Us” features Twitter's favorite poster boy Noah Sebastian who not only leads the track, also completely carries its chorus to the point that it might as well be a Bad Omens song. Julian Comeau appears on “Hate Me” in what is not even his only feature this week; it feels like these basic -core bands can’t take a breath without this guy’s attention. He shows up and does his usual Loveless thing and honestly as I hinted at above almost emulates Noah’s appearance beat-for-beat. Craig Mabbit of Escape the Fate feels fit in to appease the old heads and aside from offering a little breakdown does, again, that same thing here.

I think the worst part of the experience of this album is that none of it makes me upset because none of it makes me feel anything. Had this been any new up and comer I would have listened to this once or twice and written it off to forget about it and I think the scene at large would do the same. But because it’s The Word Alive we all collectively have to do this dance where the record drops and we get on the timeline and say “hey, you know, this is the good one.” Only for all of that to fade away in the next year and we trick ourselves and each other into thinking anything this band has done post-2012 has been anything but alt-metal radio slop being delivered to us by a guy who was relevant up until he was racist on a Kanye West cover.

Its formulaic music written for people that are easy to please, it is not worth your time.

I was mid on this record.

1. The Word Alive is Dead...
2. Hard Reset
3. Strange Love
4. One of Us [feat. Noah Sebastian]
5. New Reality
6. Hate Me [feat. Julian Comeau of Loveless]
7. Slow Burn
8. Fade Away [feat. Craig Mabbit of Escape the Fate]
9. A New Empty [feat. Phillip Strand of Normandie]
10. Static Rain
11. Invisible Army
12. Nocturnal Future
13. War with You [feat. Matt Good of From First to Last]

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