It’s hard to know where to start here. I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience with an album like I have had with this one, where the obsession was so deep and intense. Cards on the table at the start. They Fear Us is not just my favourite album of 2022: I now consider it to be my favourite album of all time. And, at this point, I’d say comfortably so, even though it has only been out for five months. I have, without variance, viewed Amplifier’s self-titled debut as my favourite record since its release in 2004 – an unchallenged 18-year stint at the summit of all records ever made. No longer.
In the first 2 weeks of its release, I
listened to They Fear Us around 90 times. In the next four weeks I
listened to it roughly another 80. That means in the first 6 weeks I played it an
average of four times a day. There was one day where I played it 16 times. Sixteen.
In the same day. It was over 2 months before there was a day where I didn’t
play it at least once. By the start of December ‘Spotify wrapped’ told me I had
listened to it just under 300 times. Which equates to 129 hours of my
time. And I’ve played it a fair bit since the start of December too, meaning
that number is misleadingly low.
This eulogy comes with a health warning. Ithaca are
a melodic metalcore band, and so will be a lot to swallow for some (most?)
readers of this List. The vocals are often shouted rather than sung (although
there is a lot of beautiful, melodic singing too), and the riffs are bone
shattering. Like Greyhaven’s excellent This Bright and Beautiful
World, this is not for the faint-hearted.
They Fear Us is Ithaca’s second
record. I found their debut, 2019’s The Language of Injury, in early
2020, so it was too late for it to be considered for the 2019 iteration of this
List. It probably would have made it on, although it would’ve been a low placer
if so: a strong metalcore record, but nothing exceptional.
In contrast, there’s no question that They
Fear Us is an exceptional record – read almost any review of it, including
a glowing one in The Guardian (not a publication well known for its
support for obscure metalcore bands). But I’m also self-aware enough to know
that context must have had something to do with me liking it quite so much. Not sure why it struck such a chord for me in the way it has, but I guess that’s
the joy of the subjectivity of music. What I can say is that a key thing
that has kept me coming back is how ambitious – musically, lyrically and
aesthetically – this record is. Ithaca have spoken about their
frustration as to the lack of ambition in metalcore. To say they have taken it
upon themselves to remedy that is a ridiculous understatement.
There are a number of themes that recur on They
Fear Us. One of them is the empowerment of the marginalised. As the album’s
title indicates, the ‘have’s’ are afraid of the ‘have not’s’, and there is huge
power to be found in acknowledging that fact. As Djamila Boden Azzouz howls on the
title track, ‘you think we’re lightyears away … but we’re catching up… / you
should know that you’re prey.’ Whereas, on ‘Fluorescent’, she bemoans the
stacked deck of the system: ‘The flowers never bloom / When it’s the vase that
decides’. ‘Camera Eats First’ hits out at body-shaming as well ruminating on public
value-signalling as a mask for abhorrent private views or actions. ‘Number
Five’ is – in part, at least – about female marginalisation (‘When did I have
to start begging / For a single scrap of sentiment?’) and, ultimately,
empowerment. Indeed, Ithaca have been explicit in interviews that ‘divine
feminine power’ underpins this album. This can even be seen on the album’s cover,
where Bouden Azzouz sits bright and vital in a (now iconic) orange dress,
amongst her subservient pale, male bandmates. I love the fact that Ithaca
have sometimes billed themselves as a ‘male-drummed’ band, to highlight the
silliness of the ‘female-fronted’ label that’s so often applied to bands that
happen to have a woman vocalist. The band also have been very clear that they
have queer members and that they actively support gay rights (Pink guitars!
Symbols are important…), as well as articulating a strong anti-racist stance.
None of which is the norm for the genre, even in 2022.
Another (related) theme throughout They
Fear Us concerns trauma – specifically, that people are not defined by
their trauma, but that it is healthy to engage with it, so as to overcome it. Musically,
this is deliberately signposted as the record evolves, with the more violent,
heavier, tracks on the early part of the album slowly transitioning towards its
more melodic and progressive final third. Lyrically, too, They Fear Us
moves from anger through to growth and kindness. Take the mirroring of the
album’s first and final tracks. It begins with trauma (and the ‘blockage’ that
it causes for people) on the thunderous ‘In the Way’. ‘There’s no place here
for compassion’ shouts Bouden Azzouz. Contrast that with the beautiful ballad
that closes the album (a song that is surely the least metalcore thing that any
metalcore band have ever done), ‘Hold, Be Held’, where she sings that ‘there is
compassion here’. Where ‘In the Way’ acknowledges that a process of healing is
beginning (‘here it goes’), by ‘Hold, Be Held’ that process is ending (‘there
it goes’). Emotional evolution is also evident in the final, delicate refrains
of the record which – listen closely – play over a bed, low in the mix, of a
snippet of its opening track. Compassion literally overcoming the trauma that
bore it. Elsewhere, ‘The Future Says Thank You’ focuses on the idea that
confronting pain in the present, rather than hiding from it, is an act of
healing for your future self, if not yet for you. This is again replicated on
‘Hold, Be Held’: ‘Don’t try to hide your shaking’, asks Bouden Azzouz. Confront
your damage to disarm it.
Of course, for all its emotional wallop, They
Fear Us is ultimately a metalcore record, and, as such, it’s important to say
that it features some of the best skull-mashing riffs ever recorded. The riff
from the title track alone is one for the ages, and the final riff – built to throughout
the song and thus earned – on ‘The Future Says Thank You’ is incomprehensibly
good. This album is just as ambitious sonically as it is lyrically. It may
engage in head banging of the very highest level, but it also draws on a wide
range of genres well beyond the narrow confines of metal. Shoegaze is one influence
(check out the end of ‘Fluorescent’), as is breakbeat (listen to the drum
sound on ‘They Fear Us’ – it’s got a sharp hip-hop edge). 80s new wave creeps
into the chorus of ‘In the Way’, and ‘You Should Have Gone Back’ is a
full-blown prog song masquerading as a metal track. Finally, as already noted,
closer ‘Hold, Be Held’ is a dreamy ballad (complete with guest vocals from
Yansé Cooper, who takes us well into the realms of soul).
Most of the tracks are packed full of dense guitar
arrangements, thanks to the incredible chemistry between Sam Chetan-Welsh and
Will Sweet. But that density is offset by just how infectious those tracks are
too. Dom Moss on bass and James Lewis on drums also deserve kudos, because they
ensure things stay tight – they are the keepers of the hooks. This album never
risks falling into the trap, which occasionally has caught the likes of Tool,
of disappearing too far into the reeds. You can always just bang your
head and forget the rest if you want. The riffs are never far away.
Ultimately, every single track is, for me, 5*.
They Fear Us is an utter masterpiece. Simply put, amongst the thousands of records that I have listened to over the decades, I like this one the
best.