It was a crime against British metal that Conquering didn’t make Employed To Serve absolutely massive. Released in the autumn of 2021, the Woking quintet’s fourth offering was an album of the year contender, opening up their once dense and scabrous brand of metallic hardcore to go straight for the jugular with the biggest, most hook-infested songs of their career.
OK, they have had a solid few years since, in fairness – touring arenas with Gojira and smashing main stage festival sets ain't nothing to be sniffed at – but in an era where genuinely heavy artists are playing Jimmy Kimmel and bagging Grammy nominations, it’s long past time one of the UK’s most consistent metal bands gets a seat at the big table.
If Fallen Star doesn’t take them there, then God is dead and Satan is sleeping, because Employed To Serve have dished up something special. Thankfully, they’ve resisted the temptation to just polish up their songs and go full ‘mainstream metal’ (no vocoders, EDM-core or sexy breakdowns here). What we have instead is another natural evolution for a band that refuse to stand still, honing their songcraft further without forgetting what made Employed To Serve exciting in the first place: riffs that rip your face off, breakdowns that blow your pants inside-out.
Opener Treachery wastes no time in setting out its stall, throwing up jangling hardcore riffs, pummelling blastbeats and guitarist/co-vocalist Sammy Urwin doing his best Tom Araya scream. It stomps its way into the kind of ferocious, swinging groove metal that underpinned much of Conquering, Justine Jones’s guttural roar of ‘Face. Reaa-luhh-taaayyy!’ a visceral but catchy focal point. You could forgive Employed To Serve for sticking with that formula, but the title track is an instant left-turn, Justine’s wretched screams scratching around Sammy’s warm croons as the songs slips from glistening shoegaze to battering metalcore.
The welcome surprises don’t stop there. Atonement made headlines for featuring infamously savage Lorna Shore screamer Will Ramos singing cleans, but it’s also Employed To Serve’s most instantaneous banger yet, skyscraper singalongs, old- school guitar solo and all. Breaks Me Down swerves sumptuously into twinkling gothic melodrama; Last Laugh, featuring Svalbard’s Serena Cherry, is gleaming 80s synth-rock wrapped up in propulsive heavy metal; Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach pops up for an impassioned cameo on searing death metal rager Whose Side Are You On?. And the hooks keep coming – the choruses erupting out of Familiar Pain and The Renegades will stick in your head for days.
Stuffed with lyrical themes of defiance, solidarity and rising above the bullshit, Fallen Star is an album whose message is delivered fervently and earnestly. ‘I will not let myself down’, Justine pledges, as From This Day Forward wraps proceedings up on a sea of heart-bursting, histrionic post-black metal. On the contrary, Employed To Serve have done themselves proud. This is their best album yet and a major contender for metal album of the year. Again. Now make this band absolutely massive!
Fallen Star is out this Friday, April 25, via Spinefarm. Order our exclusive Employed To Serve bundle featured a limited edition t-shirt here.
