We Came As Romans: DARKBLOOM II TOUR 2023

Since the release of the milestone debut album, 2009’s To Plant a Seed, diehard fans depend on We Came As Romans to deliver intimate, confessional, and autobiographical anthems, each one challenging, triumphant, and passionate. Darkbloom is a bright light in the darkness with the strength of every WCAR album before it. Singer David Stephens, guitarist Joshua Moore, bassist Andy Glass, guitarist Lou Cotton, and drummer David Puckett usher in an ambitious, courageous new era, while honoring the legacy and memory of their fallen bandmate, co-vocalist and keyboardist Kyle Pavone.

We Came As Romans’ initial ascent was quick and assured, catapulting the band (who met as teens) into the hearts of diehard fans immersed in the metalcore, post-hardcore, and Warped Tour subculture. Their hook-filled heavy music carried an uplifting message and connects with even greater urgency live. The increasingly diverse catalog of metallic might, melodic strength, and electronic atmosphere soars in clubs, theaters, and fests. They’ve supported tastemaker acts like Bring Me The Horizon, I Prevail, A Day To Remember, Falling In Reverse, Bullet For My Valentine, and The Used.

Moore and Stephens are a formidable writing team. Crowds connected with the songs on To Plant a Seed and its follow-up, 2011’s Understanding What We’ve Grown to Be. They entered Billboard’s Independent Albums chart at No. 1 with 2013’s Tracing Back Roots. Metal Hammer described 2015 self-titled fourth album as “a massive departure from their comfort zone. Where once there was positivity, patience, and platitudes, there is now pain.” AltPress declared 2017’s Cold Like War a “milestone,” noting the “expanded range of sounds, emotions, and songwriting capabilities.”

Roughly a year after Cold Like War’s release, an accidental overdose took Pavone’s life. A devastated WCAR vowed to continue, in his memory, for each other, and for their fans. Each record marks a moment in time, a stage in the process of continuing evolution, none more so than Darkbloom. Shaped by their collective loss and grief, the album balances the optimistic vitality of WCAR’s most beloved work with stark realism and emotion. Like a flower emerging through concrete, We Came As Romans symbolize the transformative power of perseverance.

For a generation of malcontents and outsiders desperate for that extra bit of adrenaline, just to make it through another day, the unrivaled ability of Frankie Palmeri to flip his middle fingers at the world (and himself), with equal bravado and passion, has made EMMURE essential listening. 

Heralded as pissed, politically incorrect, and “the most polarizing metal band since Limp Bizkit” in a Revolver Magazine cover story which sought to contextualize internet shit-posts and the band’s “brutish brand of hip-hop-inflected deathcore,” EMMURE lets the music do the talking, first and foremost. Frankie Palmeri doesn’t mince word onstage or off and EMMURE albums are allergic to complicated metaphors and overflowing with unrelenting, unforgiving, unstoppable beatdowns.

“HINDSIGHT” continues the creative partnership between the band’s singer (and sole remaining original member) and whirlwind guitarist Joshua Travis, who injected fresh energy into 2017’s Look at Yourself. It reunites the band with producer WZRD BLD, aka Drew Fulk (Dance Gavin Dance, Motionless In White, Bad Wolves). But where its predecessor viciously fought through suicidal ideation, feelings of hopelessness, and failure, “HINDSIGHT” is somehow more savage and refined.

Bloodthirsty bangers like “Pigs Ear” and “Gypsy Disco” roar with calculated ferocity, as Palmeri examines past decisions, victories, setbacks, and mistakes, with his well-documented knack for fearless autobiographical catharsis. He’s been open about his struggles with substance abuse, ex-band members, and the press. (A few would-be journalists describe him as “combative.”) But it’s exactly that raw authenticity and unrelenting forward motion that makes EMMURE so powerful.

A YouTube video from the Punk Rock MBA channel called “MOST HATED METALCORE BANDS: Emmure, Bring Me The Horizon, Attila” was viewed over 450,000 times in just over six months.

“Gypsy Disco” samples firebrand punk GG Allin, which makes a twisted kind of sense. Palmeri has openly expressed his admiration for the late provocateur, whose exploits were documented in the 1993 documentary, Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies. He’s similarly fond of another controversial and since departed agitator, who fronted the band Anal Cunt. “I would like to have a beer with Seth Putnam or GG Allin,” Frankie told Loudwire. “Those guys were on the level.”

Songs like “Solar Flare Homicide”, “Flag of the Beast”, “Natural Born Killer”, “A Gift A Curse”, “Nemesis”, and “MDMA” became scene anthems thanks to Palmeri’s charisma, a dose of death metal brutality, grooves that inspire both head-nodding and headbanging, and brash aggression.

Since 2003, the Queens, New York born rabble-rouser built EMMURE from a teenaged idea into a nearly two-decade strong extreme music institution, surviving trends, shake-ups, and critics. EMMURE doesn’t play at being “dark” or “angry” for its own sake; Palmeri has always been the same guy both onstage and off. He won’t write the same things he’s already talked about, or phrase things in quite the same way. There are no apologies and no regrets, as each EMMURE album was an honest document of how he felt. And he’s just as outspoken about his growth.

EMMURE’s confrontational spirit and irresistible hooks won them fans on Rockstar Mayhem, Warped Tour, Knotfest, countless festivals, and on tour with a diverse range of bands that includes Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and co-headliners Whitechapel. Across eight albums - like the genre classics “Speaker of the Dead” (2011), and “Eternal Enemies” (2014) – EMMURE battled their way into the extreme music scene like uninvited but necessary guests.

The band’s moniker references “immurement,” a particularly brutal form of execution where a person was trapped behind walls and simply left to die. EMMURE has defied all death sentences, however, from without and within. And while they’ve never been one to court awards or accolades, the fact that heavy metal tastemaker Loudwire put them alongside iconoclastic troublemakers GG Allin and Marilyn Manson in a list of 10 Bands That Didn’t Care If You Hated Them, just before the release of Hindsight, was exactly the kind of press to earn Frankie’s retweet.

“The band’s latest single, ‘Gypsy Disco,’ dropped earlier this year, and listening to it,” they wrote, “it’s safe to say EMMURE still couldn’t give a shit what you think about them.”

Tenacious, raw, and uncompromising in a sea of fakery, EMMURE proudly stands apart.

An epically unashamed demonstration of aggression, Bodysnatcher’s music is dark, furious, and threatening. It’s a sound born from the burden of struggle and an unwavering commitment to continued survival against all obstacles. Bodysnatcher put the “core” back in Deathcore. Bleed-Abide, the Melbourne, Florida quartet’s third album, crackles with rage and power. As seen on tour with Chelsea Grin, Lorna Shore, and Slaughter To Prevail, and in a series of increasingly packed, sweaty, and electrifying club shows, Bodysnatcher music, lyrics, and imagery already inspired several tattoos and proven transformative to deeply connected listeners. The alligator-filled swamps and burned-out tourist beaches of Florida were fertile ground for death metal when the late/great Chuck Schuldiner took his love of heavy thrash and crushed it into a new subgenre. The Sunshine State gave gruesome birth to genre pioneers like Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Deicide. Morrisound Recording became the site where legendary bands summoned essential albums. Florida claims almost as many crucial hardcore, punk, and power-violence bands, including Poison The Well, Shai Hulud, Brethren, Assück, and Strongarm. Kyle Medina (vocals), Kyle Carter (guitar), Kyle Shope (bass), and Chris Whited (drums) embody the hardcore spirit and cut their teeth in the tight-knit community. They are monikered after the nickname of one of history’s most notorious serial killers, Ed Gein, and represented by a triangular symbol steeped in alchemy and the occult. But Bodysnatcher lyrics owe more to the horrors of domestic strife than the gore of their Florida-based forebearers in Cannibal Corpse. The inception point came with the purest of intentions. “I was around 17,” Medina explains. “We were just going to be a band that was basically a ‘breakdown band’ for my friends to mosh to.” Eventually stabilizing with a lineup that overlapped at various points with beloved groups like King Conquer and Dealey Plaza, Bodysnatcher released a quick succession of albums and 4 Bodysnatcher · by Ryan J Downey · 2021 ryanjdowney.com · ryan@superherohq.com EPs, most notably Abandonment (2015), Death of Me (2017), and the utterly crushing This Heavy Void (2020). Combined with a blistering live show, this led to a deal with the MNRK Heavy label. Bleed-Abide is the darkest offering yet from Bodysnatcher, burning with an intensity derived from a further focus on sonic pummeling and truth-telling narratives. “Even as a pissed-off teenager, the first songs I wrote were about personal experiences and people who did me wrong,” Medina says. “The musicianship is more mature; there are still a lot of breakdowns but done in a much smarter way. It’s definitely still Bodysnatcher. It’s like Bodysnatcher on steroids.” All of the guys contribute to the lyrics, resulting in multiple points of view and diverse insights anchored by common themes of catharsis and resistance. “Absolved of the Strings and Stone” is a battle cry against the gaslighting and emotional abuse of toxic people. “Hollow Shell” delves into strained familial dynamics, where some family members live as virtual prisoners to others. “Wired for Destruction” confronts death anxiety. “It’s about the fear of the unknown, how all of us will move on,” says Medina. “Are we just going to return to dust? Are we just forgotten?” Even amidst the uncertainty and darkness, there’s an underlying positivity to be mined within. “Value Through Suffering” takes a proactive stance on hardship, a way to rebuild from the wreckage. Too many bands resist genre classification in an aloof effort to distinguish themselves from every other band, inadvertently consigning themselves to talking points that sound like everyone else. Bodysnatcher is, without apology, a deathcore band. There is no compromise in the cards. “Deathcore kicks ass. A lot of bands shy away from labels they don’t deem ‘cool’ enough. But we don’t give a fuck,” Medina says proudly. “We like what we like, and we play what we play. We all love hardcore and metal, so we’re going to play hardcore, play metal, and play breakdowns.” “And that’s how the band is going to be, forever.”

Arriving in recent years with powerful anthems driven by heartfelt emotion, ARCHETYPES COLLIDE quickly established itself as a band unafraid to blur the lines between safety and innovation in heavy music. Soaring vocals, melodies, and heavy grooves swirl with passion and precision. The Arizona upstarts deliver massive hooks, soaked in atmosphere, with creative energy and catchiness.

Kyle Pastor (vocals), Brandon Baker and Jared Knister (guitars), Ky Sanders (bass), and Tyler Flamm (drums) put the same work ethic and focus into songwriting as they spent building the band from their local scene to the international stage. Unapologetic choruses and bang-your-head riffs collide. Striving for a deep connection with listeners first and foremost, songs like “My Own Device,” “What If I Fall,” “Parasite,” and “Fade Away” combine loud bombast with intimate pop. ARCHETYPES COLLIDE demands repeated listening, mixing everything from Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon to The Chainsmokers, and Stranger Things-style retro synths, into a unique musical identity.

A collection of singles and EPs drew a devoted fanbase and the attention of Oshie Bichar, bassist for Beartooth. Bichar enlisted his management, and the pair took Archetypes Collide under their wing. Soon after, SiriusXM’s Octane got behind songs like “Your Misery,” “Becoming What I Hate,” and “Above It All.” The band appeared on major festivals like Aftershock, Louder Than Life, and Welcome To Rockville, toured with genre giants The Amity Affliction, and crafted an ambitious self-titled debut album for Fearless Records.

Archetypes Collide spent several weeks in the first part of 2022 making their inaugural full-length, with a super team surrounding them to execute their vision. Bichar produced alongside Nick Ingram (Dayseeker, Convictions, Hawthorne Heights) at Capital House Studio in Ohio. Additional production came from Jon Eberhard (Skillet, I Prevail, Until I Wake); The Plot In You frontman Landon Tewers lent a creative hand as well. The resulting album, mixed by Jeff Dunne (Ice Nine Kills, Wage War, Make Them Suffer), captures the vibrant spirit of the 2010s-era Warped Tour with a postmodern edge. It’s a diverse but singular mission statement, brimming with authenticity and hope.

ARCHETYPES COLLIDE isn’t bound by preconceived notions or limitations. As Pastor explains simply: “Why not take every shot, in every direction, under the umbrella of hard rock and metal?”