Review Summary: Between dull composition and awkward vocal performances, Malevolence manages to make incompatible problems somehow coexist.
I’ll admit: I’m a sucker for a female vocalist. If anything, it’s because I often get tired of the post-grunge grunting and pop-punk whining. Female vocalists add variety to hard rock. Whether you like them or not, Halestorm and The Pretty Reckless stand out in the crowded world of radio rock. So New Years Day is another contender for bringing a fresher sound to the radio. While they’ve been running the circuit for more than a decade, New Years Day are ready to drop a third LP.
Malevolence marks another round of Ashley Costello and crew, but this shift into heavier territory manages to dilute the formula down, while also having major issues when it comes to vocal performances.
At first, I didn’t have a clue what New Years Day’s vocalist Ashley Costello sounded like on this LP. It wasn’t as soaring a soprano of Lzzy Hale of Halestorm, nor was it a bluesy croon a la Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless. It also wasn’t as rough as Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong. It didn’t sound like any of the typical female vocalists in the hard rock scene, but it sounded familiar. About halfway through the album, it came to me: the vocals on
Malevolence sound like a female version of Three Days Grace. It’s gritty and raspy, sometimes going so far as sounding like Adam Gontier, but pitched up. This isn’t a good thing by any means, because this post-grunge grunting has been a tremendous blemish on the entire genre. Ashley Costello’s vocals in general sound awkward, both in melody and rhythm. The different changes in pitch are erratic and don’t really groove with the music, while the rhythms syncopate where they should flow and draw out when they should pick up the pace. There’s rarely a sweet spot with the vocal performances on Malevolence. While I’ll give fair shakes to the slamfest of “Relentless” and the single “Defame Me”, there simply aren’t many cases where Costello’s vocals are even remotely on the mark.
Beyond the vocal melodies and rhythms,
Malevolence is just a dry record. It has all those slamming chords and crushing riffs, but beyond the vocals, there’s absolutely nothing notable here. If you’re even fleetingly familiar with the rock/post-hardcore crossovers like Motionless in White or Falling in Reverse, this’ll all be obnoxiously familiar. The musicianship is overly basic, with not a memorable moment to speak of. Not even the intensity of the riffs feels full enough to make a difference, made even worse by a lack of slower tracks like “Suffer”, which thankfully break the cycle, if only for a while. This makes an already dull aesthetic outlast itself faster than it should. And don’t get me started on the lyrics. Normally, I can give cringy lyrics a pass, but not here. This is just awful. It’s already bad with off-kilter vocal rhythms, but when lyrics as horrible as those in “Scream” or “Anthem of the Unwanted” pop up, it doesn’t even reach crowd-pleasing pulses.
Malevolence never settles into a comfortable pace, but somehow manages to make its hard rock aesthetic dull as dirt in the process.
Admittedly, the brief moments of promise do have a touch of potency. “Relentless” eases up on the lyrical cringe a bit with a great chorus. In fact, the short bursts of proficiency are in the choruses. “Left Inside” has a shockingly honed chorus, as does “Defame Me.” It’s here where the crowd-pleasing adrenaline reaches its peak, as it should for any hard rock band, which makes the terrible verses and dull musicianship such large disappointments. Everything else just rampantly stumbles through awkwardly composed vocal performances and a lack of musical hooks on the instruments.
Malevolence manages to dilute stale hard rock tropes further with vocals that neither feel groovy or fiery. Suffering from the pitfalls of both post-hardcore and hard rock, New Years Day produce an album without any invention to show. The best sources of invention for female-fronted bands, the singing, are scarred by vocals that never hit the ear right, whether melodically or rhythmically. Costello can’t decide if she wants to go full clean vocals or rougher screams; she stays within an uncomfortable limbo that sounds more like post-grunge grunting than any other female vocalist I’ve ever heard.
Malevolence is a record whose individual moments of precision are dashed by lousy songwriting and weak vocals. It’ll keep the emo punks happy, but everyone else will find New Years Day to have some astoundingly miscalculated performances from problems that would otherwise never coexist. You’ll suffer.
