Hellminded Records – 16 April 2021
FFO: A Wilhelm Scream, Propagandhi
There's a lot of good energy throughout Oh The Humanity!'s self titled album, out on 16 April 2021 via Hellminded Records, but my thesis about this band (if you don't want to read the rest) is that they're very competent at playing within their genre, but I really think they shine when they don't do that. There's a few songs throughout the record that push them out of their comfort zone, but they're often surrounded by a lot of songs that just sound like a band that listens to a lot of melodic hardcore.
And I don't want that to sound too harsh because there's a lot of great work throughout this record. Vocalist Kevin Athas has a great voice and he strikes an effective balance between melodic singing and something less pitched and more aggressive. I think there's room for him to get more aggressive here and there, but there are some great vocal harmonies sprinkled throughout the record.
Oh The Humanity! is at their best when they're exploiting their interlocked guitar sound. I really like the harmonized melodies on “Wit's End,” but this kind of gets overshadowed at the end of the song by this typical metal solo – there are actually a few songs on the record that just end with brief guitar solos and it works once, maybe twice, but after that it starts to feel like a cop out. That speaks to what kind of irks me throughout the whole album, is that the band has a lot of good ideas, but they revert to these metal / melodic punk tropes a little too often. It's that much more of a disappointment because there are moments throughout the record that prove that the band can think more outside of the box that they've put themselves into. Case in point is “Never Worse,” which lives in this cool gray area between emo and melodic hardcore and I would love to hear the band do more of that! But this is followed up by “Gainesville,” which is… a song about Fest. There are just one too many punk tropes for me. And don't get me wrong: The band is tight and the songwriting is solid, but I want more.
Oh The Humanity is a good record if this brand of melodic hardcore is your thing. It's unlikely to win over someone unfamiliar with the genre. I don't necessarily think that everyone always has to bring something new to the table, but I can't help but wonder what Oh The Humanity! could achieve if they pushed themselves out of the box a little bit.
Musician and writer – I play in Cheap City and run Dollhouse Lightning
