Fit For An Autopsy – The Nothing That Is review
When it comes to their full-lengths, Fit For An Autopsy are, appropriately, a band of extremes; with their two best albums being their debut, The Process of Human Extermination, and their most recent record Oh What The Future Holds. Their first record was belligerent and wonderfully tasteless, an album of ceaseless and brain-dead beatdowns that landed at a time when the emerging direction of deathcore was trending towards the other misfit style of the era—djent. The Process Of Human Extermination still fucking decimates, feeling like a concentrated send-off to the sound of deathcore past as the genre would broadly mature, or in other words, get very fucking dull.
Fit For An Autopsy would fare better than a lot of their contemporaries, though. While over time they would lose a lot of their more flagrant death metal leanings and instead rely on Gojira-style grooves and a superficial flair for prog metal, all of these disparate styles would coalesce on Oh What The Future Holds, an album that’s easily their most refined and compositionally dense. It was an album imbued with a sense of scope while also feeling like the culmination of sounds Fit For An Autopsy had been working with since at least Absolute Hope, Absolute Hell.
It’s an album that raised questions as to where Fit For An Autopsy would go next. The Nothing That Is answered those questions with an album that is a more melodic take on the sound they’ve been cultivating for the past half-decade. While The Nothing That Is doesn’t enter an especially prominent year for the genre, it does follow releases like Vulvodynia‘s Entabeni, Enterprise Earth‘s Death: An Analogy, and Darko‘s Starfire, and so this more immediate, melodic focus gives it more weight among the prominent records in its style.
“Hostage” was the lead single, one that is pretty rigidly entrapped in contemporary crossover metal sounds; its interpolation of groove metal, djent, and deathcore isn’t as immediately gripping as a lot of the tracklist is. But in spite of that, it’s so tightly written that its roteness doesn’t become dull. Honestly, it’s the softer moments that are actually the highlight for me; Fit For An Autopsy’s use of melodic cleans are actually quite tasteful, never overbearing or straining the range of the vocalist, two qualities which have led to some of deathcore’s lowest moments. It’s a song that pretty deftly taps into the resurgence of popular millennium-era rock and metal sounds without sacrificing their own identity. A strange pick for a lead single, but an interesting one.
“Saviour Of None / Ashes Of All” was the second single released for The Nothing That Is and it’s much more in line with what you’d expect from Fit For An Autopsy, both melodically and rhythmically, with its chugging, legato riffing that flows into these more open, dramatic sections in its chorus. Whereas “Hostage” felt a bit bolder, more like a new mission statement and an olive branch to a wider audience, “Saviour Of None / Ashes Of All” feels much more like a reintroduction instead of revolution.
“Lower Purpose” was the last single released ahead of the album and it fucking kills, incorporating overdubbed vocals in a way that evokes the gang vocals of older hardcore, bolstering its combative attitude and the whirlpool-suction of its riffing.
“Spoils Of The Horde” introduces itself with a low, howling synth-pad, signalling the eruption of the band like a warship, veiled in mist, slowly lurching into view. Even in the context of the tracklist for The Nothing That Is, it’s a uniquely blistering track, with some respite given by a melodic, open break at its middle portion with clean, legato guitar arpeggios. The “How deep is your deceit / Fucking thieves” portion near the end is the catchiest the record gets, and the makeup of the riffing is more than a little indebted to Nihility-era Decapitated. “Weaker Wolves” manages to be effective despite its relative lack of bite and compositional roteness. I don’t think either the low cleans early-on or the New York hardcore-styled vocal barks later are particularly effective, but it certainly helps add character and the track would lack identity without them.
The interpolation of melodic, clean-vocal passages can be a fucking knife-edge to walk. The band is more considered on “Red Horizon,” and its initially dirge-like low-end riffing and subtle background harmonies feel suitably massive. However, when the chorus comes it feels uneven and mismatched with its theatrical melodic flair, like it’s Smackdown VS Raw menu music or something. On a less subjective level, it feels more like two incongruent musical pieces sewn together without an obvious direction. The title track “The Nothing That Is” unsurprisingly is emblematic of the album’s sound, but its transition between harsh and soft passages feels less arbitrary and sudden. There’s a feeling of communication between its levels of aggression, and while that amount of consideration might repel fans of deathcore who value its more destructive and impulsive moments, it’s easier to appreciate on an album like this.
“Lurch” teases in its introduction with off-kilter ostinatos and bass-heavy production, throwing the prior half-hour on its head and building tension for its inevitable explosion. I actually find that introduction to easily be its most interesting part—you really don’t get much deathcore written around that type of sound—but it’s an otherwise grand track in its own right. “Lust For The Severed Head,” conversely, introduces itself with high-intensity tech riffing, more reminiscent of older tracks from Fit For An Autopsy, honing in on malicious delivery and rhythmic prowess. Despite in many ways being out of step with the rest of the record, it’s a track that succeeds by just how fucking hard it manages to bite your head off.
Closing track “The Silver Sun” unfortunately doesn’t quite stick the landing for me; its more flagrant, large-scale bombast and ostentatious vocals betray the tempered, deft blend of harmony and harshness found throughout the rest of the record. The problem isn’t in its length—bands in hardcore-derivative genres have been closing their albums with relatively epic tracks for decades now—but in how it sandwiches its most interesting elements, namely its blasting middle-portion, between largely infectious melodic passages. It’s the moment on the record where the knife-edge melodic balance tips against Fit For An Autopsy the most.
The Nothing That Is feels tentative, like the start of something great instead of the culmination Oh What The Future Holds was. In spite of that, it’s an album filled with career highlights that will likely age well as its place in the bands discography crystalizes. While deathcore in the 2020s continues to develop either that reified, new-prog-djent sound it tapped into a decade ago, or developing further into the realm of downtempo, Fit For An Autopsy have managed to maintain a freakishly high level of quality for over a decade, doing it on their terms, with their own sound.
3.5/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
The Nothing That Is releases October 25th on Nuclear Blast.
