EVERY TIME I DIE - Radical 2xLP

Label: Epitaph

Every Time I Die are back with a fucking vengeance. Not that they ever really left -- they've been workhorses on the road and in the studio for over 20 years straight -- but Radical is their first album in five years (their longest gap yet) and they sound as hungry as they did in their early years. At its heaviest, Radical is some of the most vicious music that ETID have ever released.

For a band who helped define early 2000s metalcore, it shouldn't be taken for granted that their ninth album in 2021 is one of their best. Though plenty of songs hearken back to classic ETID, it sounds like a modern record, and that's thanks in part to producer Will Putney.

ETID have emerged as a core influence on this scene (Keith Buckley sang on the latest Knocked Loose full-length), and Radical positions them not just as forebears but as peers, whose new music is just as forward-thinking as the newer metalcore bands that are shaping the genre's latest wave. At this point, calling Every Time I Die "veterans" is an understatement. They're an institution.