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Review Summary: Frenetic, emotional, and deeply satisfying “Bore of our own necessity. Wristmeetrazor exists as a monument to the space between sanity and self-destruction. Happiness. Sadness. Life. Death.”
With an introductory statement like this on your band’s biography page, the expectation of an album drenched in emotion comes bubbling to the surface. Forget about the godawful band name for a second; despite referencing a Usurp Synapse track from 2003, it reeks of the distinct edginess that gave the emo subculture such a bad name just a short decade ago. Despite the obvious cringe involved, their goal (aside from the one mentioned in their biography) is to put together a mix of 1st-wave-revival metalcore and emoviolence. Think of it almost like you would a cross between Pg. 99 and Vein, if you will. Prior to this, Wristmeetrazor had released two EPs, I Talk to God… and ...But the Sky Is Empty, both of which relied a bit more heavily on their emoviolence roots than anything else.
On the other hand, Misery Never Forgets taps into the 1st-wave-revival side of their sound far more than on previous work, bearing a sonic similarity to bands more along the lines of Eighteen Visions, The Chariot, and Converge. While not quite the technical powerhouse as someone like Kurt Ballou, guitarist Jonah Thorne knows how to deliver a stellar performance. The album begins with a riff driven by panic chords in opener “Loathsome”, setting the tone for what's to come afterwards. “XOXO (Love Letters from a Loaded Gun)” wears the band’s influences on its sleeve with its Ballou-esque build-up leading to a whirlwind of aggression. Sans the closer “No More Blue Tomorrows”, nothing on this breaks the three minute mark, making for a brief experience that’s all the more satisfactory for it. “Goodbye Sweet Betty” serves as a break from the chaos of the other eight tracks, allowing the listener to soak in whatever atmosphere is held within the brief runtime of the album.
Despite how common (almost to the point of cliche, in fact) the lyrical themes present on Misery Never Forgets are in both metalcore and emoviolence, they hold significance here when considering the band’s intentions. Sorrow, regret, and mourning are just a few of the emotions that hold this twenty-minute deluge of patently controlled chaos together; whether it’s lamenting a death like in “No More Blue Tomorrows” or expressing regret in “He Smiled from Ear to Ear”, the level of emotional honesty on display adds to the overall humanity of the album. The three members of Wristmeetrazor certainly aren’t intending to blow everyone’s minds with an intricate concept on the level of Tool’s Lateralus, but they really don’t need to in a genre that’s not bound by the same level of intricacy as something like progressive metal. The band simply says what they need to say and never overstays their welcome, which makes total sense when considering the brevity of each track.
While their name is arguably tasteless and may be offensive to people, it wouldn’t be the wisest choice for any self-professed fan of metalcore or emoviolence to ignore a mammoth of an album like Misery Never Forgets solely because of the name attached to it. The emotional element of the record runs fairly deep, the music is caustic in all the right ways, and it’s abundantly clear that Wristmeetrazor is wearing just about every influence they derive their sound from on their sleeve. You won’t find long, sprawling post-rock jams here, as evidenced by the fact that only its closer breaks the three minute mark, but you will find an abundance of spastic numbers from beginning to end. What’s most impressive here is how the band’s sound manages to feel more powerful as a three-piece than many bands can pull off with five or more members. Here’s to hoping they stick around for a while longer.
| other reviews of this album |
PyramidNoise (3.5)
On the surface this represents everything I want to forget about late 90s/early 2000s metalcore and ...
Supercoolguy64 (3.5)
In which wearing your influences on your sleeve actually results in something solid...
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| trending all genres albums |
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Album Rating: 4.0
I know this already had two reviews, but I couldn't help myself from weighing in. This album fucking rules. m/
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Seems like as much as I hate the band name imma check this out. Not like shit else is coming out this week. Hope I like it, well written man 
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
@Zach: Hey, thanks!
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
I checked this and not a fan at all tbh. This style has already been done way better by bands a decade ago.
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Finally checked this and damn I love it
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
@joshie: yeah, honestly I prefer this to Errorzone, but maybe that needs time to grow on me.
@slex: fuck yeah m/
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a few words, if i may
i would cut down on the monotone genre descriptions - you use the words "metalcore" and "emoviolence" almost ten times here. instead, i would focus more on what the album actually sounds like. sure you briefly mention it in your "sorrow, regret, and mourning" sentence, but that is an incomplete picture at best. avoiding these blatant genre descriptions not only A) avoids the dicey situation of your reader not knowing what the heck "emoviolence" is (while i grant you this site is for music nerds, it is always helpful for me to think about how my essays / reviews would read in front of an audience of laymen) but B) it allows you to actually be more creative in the way you approach it. have fun with it! think of interesting, new ways to describe a man yelling his head off while guitars roar away in the background. furthermore, you've well established the fact that the genres this band deals with are those two - metalcore and emoviolence. so why bring up the fact that they don't sound like things outside of those genres multiple times (the seemingly random Tool comparison, post-rock)? it distracts from your argument as a whole for seemingly no reason.
speaking of arguments, allow me to talk about yours briefly. you spend a lot of the first paragraph talking about how "cringe" their band name is only to abruptly shift to those straightforward genre descriptions. it doesn't make any sense to do this if your review isn't about how they overcome their image or something, even if you do use it to transition into your closing paragraph. your first paragraph also somewhat critically lacks a thesis - ironically enough, as you discuss the band's mission statement, you forget to craft your own - and as a result your ability to expand on the album is somewhat hampered as you have nothing to expand upon, other than "it sounds like 1st wave revival" (by the way, i would avoid repeating the phrase "1st-wave-revival" in such quick succession - it's not critical, but try rephrasing it, maybe). i personally would be very interested in learning about how the band manages to surmount those image issues that their name admittedly brings.
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while reading this, i couldn't help the nagging feeling that i'd read this review before. you adhere very firmly to a general formula: introduce band, talk about what band does (band members, etc.), go through a few tracks, make some comparisons, and wrap it all up in a bow / paragraph. again, have some fun with it! think of new, exciting ways to talk about the music you love! make up stories about it! get wanky with your writing- it's more enjoyable than it sounds, i promise.
finally, a quick note on the tracklist / total ranking: i understand the want to keep things organized, but ultimately, you shouldn't need this in a review if you've defended your points thoroughly. particularly if your "overall album rating" is very similar to that formal rating you give it at the start - i mean, does the audience really need to know it's more of a 4.1 than a 4? (as a compromise, maybe put it in your first comment under the review?)
i took the time to write all this out because i've noticed that you've written a lot of reviews for Sput over a fairly short period of time, and i thought it'd be nice to pay back your services to this community as a whole. constructive criticism is a necessity when it comes to building yourself to be a better writer - trust me, i know this from a loooooot of experience. i do think you have quite a bit of potential - certainly if you've written almost 50 reviews in a year's time. i personally believe that if you develop your own unique voice some more and get more creative in the ways you approach a review, you could become a great asset to this site as a whole.
have a good one mate
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
@Friv: Thank you for your criticism, greatly appreciated. Will take this into consideration.
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How do I pos a comment?
Those are really good points Friv, it's easy to become stale after writing so much in a short span, it happened to all of us at one point or another. Once we find a formula, it's just the same review with different names. It's not easy to break out of the mold, but trying to do it is where the fun resides imo.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Yeah, I've just tried to stay impersonal because getting too personal is what dragged my I Am Human review from April 2018 down and probably why my City of Evil review was so polarizing.
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I’ve brought up a few of those points before with your writing Agent, glad it looks like it’s going to start sinking in. Agreed doubly on the “will be a huge asset to this site”, you remind me of my younger sput days.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Agreed with the above, fair critique from Friv and lots of potential in the review, keep it up
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That really is one of the most unfortunate band names I've ever heard
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I've never been turned off by a band based solely on their image
Turns out there's always the first time
Name, lyrics and 2004 emo style aesthetics are fucking abysmal
Too bad because some drops bang.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Band name is not good but I love the music.
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Ahhhh fuck.... you people.... should I just embrace the guilty pleasure, don my mascara once more and go back to be an emo kid?
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Is "Virgina" the slutty sister state of Virginia?
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
If you put on black lipstick and studded heart chokers and listen to Industrial music along with this and complain about how scene kids stole everything from you then you could be 2004 mall goth instead of 2004 mall emo.
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