Motionless In White release "Afraid Of The Dark"
What seems and looks like a Swedish Death Metal single, a good direction for the metalcore group.
Sometimes the face paint and stuff like that turns me off, but I can’t deny Motionless In White’s direction over the last few albums has been awesome. The first time I heard of Motionless in White was at an all day show that was held at a skating rink in a town over from me back in 2009ish. (It’s possible I have that date incorrect, it was the Chesarena in Harmarville) This was before anyone really knew who they were. At the time they only had “Creatures” out which suggested they were going to be more of a boring Attack Attack style band... But given a few albums, we can rest assured they grew quite a bit.
Over the last 2 years, I really started to browse their discography. Seems like around 2017 with “Graveyard Shift” they stepped into more mainstream metal for better and pretty rarely, worse. I’ve really enjoyed their most recent releases, but still do enjoy some of the older material as well.
I was never into the flippy hair and skin tight jeans deal because I grew up with a bit more older metal, but there were some bands that I enjoyed that fashioned themselves that way. I am glad however that’s mostly gone by the way side. Now only if we could get rid of mullets….
Anyways, on January 28th, Motionless in White dropped “Afraid of the Dark”. The opening reminded me of Soilwork and I’m sure that’s by total coincidence. The synth, blast beat and tense guitar riff before opening into a verse initially carried by guitar and vocals? Hell yeah! The verses are packed full of action, and the pre-chorus sounds like a standard MiW pre-chorus, but it does open up for the chorus. Chris’ voice is very powerful and this song just exemplifies that. The breakdown comes after another verse, chorus and pre-chorus. The breakdown features their signature "BLEGH!” which seemingly has became a staple in some metal songs today. Post breakdown, there’s clean guitar and Chris singing a chorus then a punchy outro-esque style riff before the synths end the song. Reminiscent of their more recent material, all while feeling energetic and fresh. My opinion? Keep it up! I’m a fan.
As always, thank you guys so much for reading. I’ll talk to you guys on Friday for a different style of substack.
Kyle, with The Great Megalodon