Review Summary: "The Blood Between Us, Makes It All But True"
One of the most anticipated Hardcore albums this year finally came out, and I just finished listening to it. However, considering the quality of this band’s last studio album, does “Empty Days & Sleepless Nights” live up to the expectations? I guess I’ll just leave the answer to the end.
As everyone knows by now, this record continues with the same narrative lyricism that the band has introduced us to three years ago. The album opens with “Warm Blood Rush”, and the first sound we hear is Derek Archambault’s desperate screaming. His words are angry and wrathful, as the eccentric guitars come in and Andy’s crazy drumming makes the song heavier. Then, it just gets better when the song starts to build up its ending and it becomes noticeable that this album will be more melodic and the lyrics carry just as much emotion as in “Travels”.
“Dear Father” is next, with more deep lyrics, catchy guitar lines and a fast chorus filled with frustration and anxiety. At this point, the album began to grab me and make me curious about the next tracks. But it amazed me for the first time with “Empty Glass”, which is probably one of the best songs the band has ever written. I particularly love the way Derek shouts “Because there ain’t nothing like your smile, your legs and those eyes. And I will beg and steal and borrow to keep you safe your whole life”.
The story proceeds with melodic riffs, chord progressions and more aggressive vocals, reaching one of its highest peaks with “White Knuckles” (probably the best song of the album), and making its way until the abrupt ending in “White Oak Doors”.
Defeater definitely improved their musicianship and developed their sound, but the last four songs started to lack some creativity, and didn’t really add anything new to the rest of the album. Of those acoustic tracks, I felt like “Brothers” was the only one that should be in the album, which was a bit disappointing.
To conclude, this isn’t an extremely complex record but the Hardcore part is almost perfectly executed. On top of that, the well known clever lyrics from this band remain here, and some lines are unarguably memorable. As for the question that started this review, in my view “Empty Days & Sleepless Nights” is just as good as Defeater’s last work, the only main difference here is that they experimented more with their sound, which is still excellent nonetheless.
Recommended Tracks:
- Dear Father
- Empty Glass
- White Knuckles
- Quiet The Longing
- Brothers
