With three albums released in just over three years, you could be forgiven for dismissing To The Wind as lacking the requisite fire to distinguish themselves within an over-saturated metalcore genre.
Thankfully, the follow-up to 2014’s critically heralded Block Out The Sun & Sleep possesses that abrasive dynamism and doles out infectious energy, passion and aggression in equal measures.
Ferocious opener and lead single Temporary Escape sets the tone; frontman Tanner Murphy’s urgent lead vocals play off against emphatic gang chants (‘No place left to go!/Slowly drifting, I’ve been waiting tucked within my shell’) while pummelling grooves and reverb-laden melodies bear the hallmarks of Defeater and Parkway Drive. The ambient textures and sprinklings of lush melancholia on The Brighter View are as addictive as they are hair-raising, while Don’t Wanna Know, Only Way and raw-throated Hard To Live Harder To Love are infused with emotive fury and the kind of singalong choruses capable of commanding any festival pit. The current view shines bright for this Seattle quartet.
