Release Date: August 13, 2021 Genre: Metalcore, Post-Hardcore, Rap Metal
Label: Hopeless Records
Song Highlights: "Miles Away," "Burn It Down," and "Chasing The High"
Afterlife is a metal/rap-metal/post-hardcore band based out of Florida, and they will release their second studio album, Part of Me, on August 13th. The band is trying to get noticed in this day and age of music with new sounds and new bands getting popular with mixing genres together. Instead of going with producer Zakk Cervini who produced the last record -and has worked with Machine Gun Kelly, Yungblud, and Poppy- has been getting a lot of traction lately in the music industry. They went back with their original producer Zach Jones, who did their first EP, Vicious Cycle. He has worked with notable artists in the metalcore/post-hardcore scene including, Fever 333, Thousand Below, and Cane Hill. The record does give the rap-metal vibe but more or less lacks a lot of that metalcore/post-hardcore aspect -if they were going for that.
The album starts off with "Wasting Time." That features a good hard catchy chorus with very enjoyable guitar riffs that I have noticed on this track. A good track to start off the album. "Envy," to me, is a track that actually doesn't feel like an Afterlife song. It felt like they were really trying to sound like From Ashes to New, another rap-metal/hard rock group that has been compared a lot to Linkin Park, as well. But a benefit of this track compared to From Ashes to New is this track feels harder than what From Ashes to New makes. I hope that's what the band was going for cause I enjoyed that. "Misfit Anthem" is a very short track on the album, to me personally. Also, it's a track that sounds like an arena metal song with chants and hard cleans. I'm not much of a fan of arena-type songs, usually because it never feels like a good vibe, to begin with, I would put it like that.
"Not Giving It Up" did give me some kind of post-hardcore vibe to it, but it still has that metal/rap blend to it. One thing I noticed with this track that struck out to me was the backtracking of the "Woahs" and the chants that I enjoyed with the song. "Part of Me" continues with the trend of metal rap, but instead with clean vocals for the first time on the record, almost sounding like rap-rock. It also gave me again the influence of From Ashes to New, but as well this time, hints of Mike Shinoda. "Miles Away" is an enjoyable track, but to me, too short. But I wanted to highlight this song cause of the kook they put in the song, as it sounded almost like an NF song with the high pitch vocals. Its kind of like NF went rock for once, which was pretty cool.
"Pure" continues that repetitiveness of a chorus that you notice on this record very much so. But it does shine with nice hard guitar riffs and dirty vocals from the singer. "Burn It Down" was the first track on how I found this band a few months ago, as the first single to the record. I would totally recommend this track to a person who wants to get into this band for a first listen. It does have very good heavy guitar riffs for metal fans but still continues that album repetitiveness of a chorus. "Who Am I" is a track on this record that has that "metalcore-ness" to the band that's been missing. Very chunky guitar riffs with some dirty drums it's a solid metalcore track from the band. With "Chasing The High" as the final track to the album. It was a good song with nice vocals. Honestly, the song just felt right on the record and felt balanced, you can say.
Afterlife made a solid record with the rap-metal style they were going for, but it does lack for fans of the band if they're looking for that post-hardcore and metalcore aspect of the band. As well, just the repetitiveness on the album for myself, felt like it was too much near the end of the record. I hope for the next record, the band can bring back some of that metal side of their music and balance out the repetitiveness.
Check out more from Afterlife:
