Review Summary: 17 short but sweet minutes
The Gloom in the Corner are at the metalcore intersection of absurdly cheesy and gorgeously heavy. Emerging in 2016, the band staked their claim on an original story involving secret organizations dealing with the occult, inner demons, skull-faced sociopaths, and a winding narrative that would take a whole video essay to deconstruct (coincidentally, there’s a PDF from the band that deals with their story, and it’s about 60-something pages). The one thing their debut,
Fear Me, forgot to do was make a good album to go along with that story.
Okay, that’s a little harsh.
Fear Me wasn’t awful, but it lacked memorability aside from being a vicious nu-tinged metalcore album, focusing instead on shoving in nerdy references and weird vocal meters. For the band’s follow-up EP,
Homecoming, The Gloom in the Corner decided to shift their focus to making actual good metalcore. Befitting of its 5-track, 17-minute runtime,
Homecoming places all emphasis on razor-sharp riffs, howling vocals, and an unrelenting pummel of heaviness that refuses to let up for a second.
There’s an immediate couple improvements that are instantly noticeable when you listen to this EP. First and foremost, lead singer Mikey Arthur really went the extra mile on cleaning up his cleans, compared to the unbelievably strained performance on their debut. “Brother” and “War” are the best showcase of this, still intentionally shaky and almost warbly, but with a lot more emotion and stability behind them. This is complemented by his damn savage screams, which open the album in fine fashion. The lyrics also have seriously improved, with a thankful lack of ham-fisted recitations of famous creepypastas. While the lyrics here clearly still tell a story, it’s done far more tastefully, with focus still placed heavily on mood and atmosphere (with that mood usually being unrelenting despair and rage).
But a vocalist is nothing without a solid band backing them up, and, thankfully, TGIC are not lacking in this department either.
Homecoming is a pure riff-fest, and from the minute Arthur belts out “Welcome to the Rabbit Hole,” the band takes off and never stops. The band’s nu-metal inspirations are put to full use here, with the riffs being almost bouncy at certain points, but managing to ring in dread and pure regret elsewhere (album highlight “War” makes full use of the more emotional, despairing side of the guitars). There’s all the hallmarks of good nu-metalcore, from the driving guitars to the pounding drums, and the best part is that, with only 5 tracks present, they never get the chance to start feeling old or stale by the EP’s thunderous end.
That’s really the best way to describe
Homecoming at the end of the day: a short, full-speed ahead, thunderous EP that improves upon The Gloom in the Corner’s debut in every way possible. Its 17 minutes are all made the most of, and it provides the perfect template for The Gloom in the Corner to follow on their future releases.
