From their hardcore days to their newer, progressing sound on Flesh Stays Together, Dying Wish has been inching toward something sharper, more spectral, more personal. Not just lyrically, but also in sound. The band formed in Portland, Oregon in 2018 and haven’t stopped terrorizing the world alongside Spiritbox and Pain of Truth to name a few. Through nonstop touring, explosive live performances, and a clear sense of purpose, Dying Wish have established themselves as one of the most essential and uncompromising acts in modern heavy music. Drawing on the visceral energy of metallic hardcore while injecting a sharp, contemporary urgency with clean vocals, the band creates songs that are as politically aware as they are sonically punishing.
In 2020, they signed with SharpTone Records making this newest offering their third release with the label. Recorded with producer Will Putney (Knocked Loose, Nothing, Full of Hell), Flesh Stays Together has the band return with 10-tracks of an unrelenting barrage that sees them continuing to push at their limits as they paint a vivid portrait of human suffering and raise calls for resistance.
Vocalist Emma Boster stated that they wanted to push vulnerability by adding more clean vocals on this album and they did just that. While that makes this album more marketable to on-the-fence true metalcore fans, that wasn’t the band’s intent. The clean vocals are haunting at times, while sounding epic on other tracks. Whether clean or screaming, the vocals truly are wonderful. She really does have the voice of an angel and a demon at the same time. Lyrically, Emma is obviously wrestling with grief, rage, disillusionment, and bitter hope. The structures of these tracks are as if they were thrown into a blender filled with melody and menace.
It’s an interesting mix of songs when compiled together. It feels almost as if Evanescence, Kittie, and Walls Of Jericho were pulled at times to write parts of songs and they mashed them together. While there are still brutal breakdowns for the older fans, it tends to get overshadowed by the clean vocals that will open doors for future ones. They lean hard into this contrast on the release. Bludgeoning breakdowns give way to clean vocals that spill like confessions. Hands down, this record is their most cinematic, their most expanded, and their most exposed yet.
Where it lands hardest is in the tension of the tracks. Knowing that everything they’re screaming is personal, yet feeling like every scream echoes outward at systems, society, and self. It does drag in places at times and some transitions between the brutal and the fragile could’ve cut cleaner, but those stumbles feel human, not misstep. My top three tracks on this album would have to be “Empty The Chamber”, “I Don’t Belong Anywhere”, and “Heaven Departs”. Ultimately, Flesh Stays Together doesn’t just burn the bridges of their past releases but uses the ash to write about their future.
