Hi, everyone. Anthony Plantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Frail Body album, Artificial Bouquet.

This is the sophomore full-length LP from Rockford, Illinois, loud rock outfit, Frail Body. It is their second for the Deathwish Incorporated label, where their sound fits in pretty well, I would say, with their multi-genre blend of lightning-fast screamo. Screamo that basically ticks all the boxes of the genre.

Bright, searing guitar tones, melodramatic vocals played out with relentless screams that just makes my throat burn listening to them. The very fast pacing and harshness of this album not only puts it squarely in screamo territory, but I would say actually even emo-violence, the even more aggressive cousin to the emo genre.

This record is not just some scrams, rehash, or revival, as there are some heavier metal influences coming through on the drums on this record, on the bass, on the heavier, thicker mix, some of the guitar riffs, too. There are dashes of metalcore on this record, as well as slower, spacier passages that come from more of the post-metal field.

Some speedily strummed and sinister chord progressions, too, that are giving black metal. In an emo black metal fusion style that feels similar to that of bands like Deafheaven, for example. I would also add some of the more dynamic passages of the record where the guitars and drums sync up very tightly as they are ramping up or slowing down in speed is reminiscent of what you might catch on a liturgy album, which is cool if you ever wanted to hear that thing pulled off in a less experimental avant-math metal context.

On the surface, I think there is a going for this album. You have crushing production, tight performances that still come across as organic, as well as a versatile array of influences and styles going into these tracks. Together, all of these things build a sound that is explosive in a way that is instantly attention-grabbing, which is why it's a shame that the record is so one-note across the tracklist. That is despite this record being a tight 11 tracks and 40 minutes. It's not exactly trying to overstay its welcome. And yet a lot of the faster messages on this record blur together, not just across the album, but within the songs themselves, as there seems to be little in the way of a broader appreciation for tension and release, even on some of the longer tracks.

"Envious," whose slower moments, I think are a good idea in concept, but the writing and chord progressions during these sections is often pretty basic and makes them a lot less gratifying than they should be. The dense crescendo-type buildups on the album follow most post-metal blueprints pretty closely, and while the vocal performances are fine by screamo standards, they are certainly passable. I fail to see what they bring to the genre more broadly, and I don't really think I could pick them out of a lineup, especially with them being pretty buried into the mix a lot of the time.

I guess this is all a convoluted way of saying, even though there are things about this LP that I like, the production, the cool combination of styles, the fantastic performances. This is a very visceral and exciting album, sonically speaking, and the band certainly has a lot of chemistry in the studio. Disturbed. It's the writing and musical ideas underneath all of that that desperately lacks anything sharp, memorable, or novel. And that's not even just a statement on the record, seeming derivative in comparison with everything else out there in screamo-adjacent metal music, in post-metal, in heavier western black metal strains. No, it's also a statement on how these songs sound together on this very record side by side.

Even if this album is showcasing a lot of good stuff, its best elements, unfortunately, are hitting a ceiling or a bottleneck where only so much of its greatness is shining through or translating annoyed, which is why I'm feeling a strong 5 to a light 6 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, Frail Body, Forever.