It’s been a while since the British metal scene produced a band that felt poised to make real marks on the worldwide metal scene. The One Hundred certainly had a moment, but then that all fell apart. Evile and Orange Goblin have both been standard bearers in their turn, but both are coming up on two decades of service (and more.) So it is with some excitement that Bristol natives Rxptrs come on the scene with their album “Living Without Death’s Permission.”
Much like so many recent metal luminaries, Rxptrs succeeds as a product of genre bending, and a comfortable sense of when the music needs to reach outside the margins to create the proper aural image. It’s a skill that comes with no small amount of bravery, as fans of the respective genres often balk at a crossover and being something less ‘pure.’
Which is, of course, bullshit. But there it is. To illustrate the kind of blending we’re talking about, consider the song “The Death Rattle,” which calls to mind just a little big of the swing of fellow Commonwealth members The Living End, who in turn were inspired by The Stray Cats. The same song also is reminiscent of a little-known Annihilator track called “Speed,” which in its turn sounded like a cast-off Van Halen track. So already, we’ve tied Rxptrs, consciously or unconsciously, to four different bands from four different splinter groups. And that’s before we bring up the song’s multi-tracked, gang-chorused outro.
In more contemporary terms, Rxptrs lives at the intersection, however improbable, or BRKN Love, Dead Poet Society, and Beartooth, employing in equal measure the rock sensibility of the first, the hardcore emotion of the second, and the big riffs and metal songcraft of the third. There’s also a passing vocal resemblance to one-and-done New Jersey punk band I.D.K, (not to be confused with the rap artist of the same name,) but that’s hardly a contemporary reference (though their album “Til Death Do Us Part” is available on Spotify, somewhat to my genuine shock.)
Before we get into the laudable parts of “Living Without Death’s Permission,” there will be detractors who will decry the clean vocals and emotional appeal of the choruses that seed throughout the album, but that, much like the rejection of genre definition mentioned above, is simply where metal is right now. And it honestly should have been expected simply by looking at the calendar – we are coming into a generation of musicians who could have come of age while listening to “The Black Parade” and similar records, so we should expect no less from the artists who were thus inspired. The choices for metal ‘purists’ (there’s that term again,) are to either embrace the creativity and direction of the artists, or live in a bunker huddled up close to their favorite music of old.
Anyway.
There is little question that “Living Without Death’s Permission” is a front-loaded album. “Burning Pages” screams from the starting gate with a machine-gun lyric and a crusher of a breakdown. The acceleration continues through the single “Rock Bottom is a Stepping Stone,” which is an honest headbanger just as a function of displaying a powerful downbeat.
“Dead Awake “Pretty as the Drugs We Take,)” is where the comparison to BRKN Love feels most apt, as listeners of both artists will be reminded of the Canadian band’s “Toxic Twin.” The song diverge as Rxptrs launch into a hardcore breakdown that serves as just another example of the genre switching which propels their album.
Within the first minute of “Demons in My Headphones,” there’s a section leading into the first chorus that’s a pull from metal, with staccato lyrics and a muted riff that chugs with adrenaline. The only regret of that one ten-second portion is that it only happens once on the song, and really, on the record. That brief snippet of songwriting is something Rxptrs should isolate and explore, because it just plain works.
After the aforementioned “The Death Rattle,” there’s three more songs, “Cold Ground,” “The Frail” (which is a popular single,) and “Let Me Die How I Want,” which we mention in a group only because this is where some of the originality of the album starts to fade. There’s nothing wrong with these songs per se, but they fall into more established tropes of hardcore power ballads, so this trinity at the end is take-them-or-leave-them depending on personal taste.
Let’s not lose focus, though. “Living Without Death’s Permission” throws seven haymakers right off the start of the album, and on a ten-song record, that’s a hell of a percentage of punches landed. Whether Rxptrs represents the start of a new British wave of metal is too early to be determined, but they are an enjoyable bellwether for where their respective genres sit in conjunction to one another, and where that combination is going.
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