Release Date: February 10, 2023
Genre: Post-Hardcore, Progressive Rock
Label: Fearless Records
Over the last seventeen years together, Pierce the Veil has become one of the biggest and one of the most successful bands within their musical scene. The band has several fan favourite tracks. However, their incredibly popular single "King For A Day" -some ten years after its release- shot back to number one on Billboard's Hard Rock streaming chart after a TikTok challenge went viral late last year. The band even had two gold singles, their third album Collide With The Sky (2012) went gold, and finally, they hit the road for the first time since 2017 on an entirely sold-out tour with I Prevail, Fit for a King, and Yours Truly. Continuing to ride this immense wave of success, Pierce the Veil has readied their massive fifth album, The Jaws of Life. Their fifth album marks their third release for Fearless Records. The Jaws of Life was produced by Paul Meany (Twenty One Pilots, Mutemath, The Blue Stones) and mixed by Adam Hawkins (Machine Gun Kelly, Turnstile, Twenty One Pilots).
Being out of the limelight for the last five years, the band has had approximately twice the amount of time to work on new music than they've had between any of their past records. Without question, Pierce the Veil has matured enormously, and it's echoed into the twelve tracks that fill out the tracklist of The Jaws of Life. Sonically, The Jaws of Life is a huge push forward for the three-piece. The band moves past their staple post-hardcore sound they've grown to be loved for, for an experimental and methodical sound. The album features an unexpected move to a progressive rock sound, leaving the band to give their music more layers to their songwriting than ever before. A lot of their past is still intertwined in these songs. Immediately out the gate, "Death Of A Executioner," which goes straight into the punkish "Pass The Nirvana," the sonic maturity is put on crystal clear display. Elements of their past still do linger across the entirety of the record in tracks such tracks as "Emergency Contact," "Flawless Execution," "Damn The Man, Save The Empire," "Resilience," "So Far, So Fake," and "12 Fractures" -which features rising pop artist Chloe Moriondo. An interesting note is "Resilience" opens with a sound clip from the cult classic film Dazed And Confused (1993). These six tracks sound like they could fit on pretty much any of their past records. However, a few of these tracks mentioned and a couple like "Even When I'm Not With You," the album's title track "The Jaws of Life," and "Shared Trauma," feature the incorporation of elements taken from the genres of progressive rock, lo-fi, pop, and alternative rock. While overall, The Jaws Of Life is a drastically different album from Pierce the Veil, the complexity of their music stays the same at every other molecule. Maybe they sound different on the surface, but they're layered at the exact same as every single song on their previous four albums. Frontman Vic Fuentes continues to tackle significantly serious and important subject matter on The Jaws Of Life, and he once again pens meticulous honesty and ingenious twists of phrase into the messages he's conveying within his lyrics. You can pre-save and pre-order a physical copy of The Jaws Of Life here.
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