Credits:

The Ghost Inside

Description:

The fourth studio long-player from the West Coast metalcore unit, Dear Youth goes all in, doubling down on the band’s penchant for crafting tightly wound, muscular, old-school screamo blasts of aggression with a punk-metal center. The album kicks things off with “Avalanche,” a fist-pumping stadium rocker complete with on-the-nose snare hits and pick slides. Adhering to a vague conceptual framework that addresses the myriad challenges of growing older, especially within the confines of the often unforgiving and machismo-filled world of post-hardcore, Dear Youth feels completely dialed in, even as it wrestles with the lyrical tropes and sonic traps of its chosen genre. There are no subtleties to be found here, and frontman Jonathan Vigil’s authoritative wail is still as didactic as it is motivating, but the band deliver breakdowns, beatdowns, and pit-inducing choruses with such efficiency that it’