If you were going to create the perfect hybrid of music for millennials who were too young to really embrace the music of Myspace, but are still yearning for it's nostalgia as they seek to find a culture of their own , outside of Tik Tok, this project seems like it was dreamed up in a lab to meet those needs. His fifth album has a bigger production value to help him fully realize this sound. There is a nu-metal groove to the opening track that marries to a pop punk sense of melody that is run through a enough auto-tune to pull it all together. If Blink 182 hit harder and had a Linkin Park fetish the results would be similar. The second song finds him getting help from Lorna Shore vocalist Will Ramos. The pop punk hooks are heavier than any of the metal post-nasal drip coating the back of the song. For pop textured music, it is effective with the hooks. The pastel and neon color schemes of millennials is sonically captured here, even the heavier metal core break down lacks the balls of a Goatwhore or even Cannibal Corpse. The difference in actually being metal and trying to get the sound of metal.
Sass-core band SeeYouSpaceCowboy, joins him for the more hip hop tinged "Psycho Psychiatry" . Joseph has been public with his mental illness so the lyrics touch on this. Though it is more about being a victim than taking responsibility and self regulating. There is more of a Deftones like sound to "Chromakill3r", who would be the main purveyors of nu-metal power ballads to take influence from. There is more honesty in this song, as I do not think trying to be metal core is really who he is. I do think he is an aggressive person. His rapping is decent but brings more Linkin Park comparisons. "Suicide Pact' continues on this emo/ rap path with break downs included . The cohesion of songwriting is a surprising challenge for someone so into pop adjacent music.
"Thirst4violence" features Canadian Rapper Freddie Dredd and the band Siliverstein. It hard to take a skinny little kid seriously when they rap about violence . It's a feeling of posturing similar to that when you hear a metal band growling about the occult , and it's all just for show. Pete Wentz helps him out with "Cyan1de" which is a better investment of talent. This feels more authentic than the pretend tough guy act. "Er4ser" is like the Blink 182 of Hip-hop. It is not the album's worst moment , though the chorus does not connect. Then it's back to more of a Linkin Park feel with "Fortune Teller". Buddy Nielsen from Senses Fail joins him on "M1sery Syndrome". It feels like generic emo rock. The hook of the vocals might feel more impressive if it did not feel so cut & paste .
"Venom" finds him teaming up with Underoath, but the results do not have much of a marked difference from the other songs on this album. Some are just more rapped than others. There is more nuance to the production, but knowing this guy is straight edge , makes his references to drugs seem very vacant. "Memory Fracture" closes the album with more atmosphere which feels like vibe truer to who he is. This album is very scattered and the song writing not that focused despite being consistent in the over all vision. It's very well produced pop chaos that want to be from the Myspace era. I will give it an 8 for the effective moods it does capture, in many ways he set out to make the album he wanted to , what he wanted to make is just not who he is. Faking it till he makes it works sometimes though.
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