Fit For An Autopsy // The Nothing That Is // Album Review

New Jersey titans Fit For An Autopsy is back with the next evolution in modern metal!

Fit For An Autopsy’s acclaimed 2022 album “Oh What the Future Holds” saw the group go even further in the stratosphere within the metal genre. Forming in 2008, the band came up within the deathcore scene, but since the release of 2017’s “The Great Collapse”, it saw the band took a different step & carved their sound & helped shape this generation of heavy music.

The band’s newest album, “The Nothing That Is”, sees them continue to create some of the most anthemic & heaviest music in their discography to date!

The opening track, “Hostage”, feels like a great continuation of their last album but gives it sprinkles of more focused elements within the band’s sound. Joe Badolato’s vocal is even more menacing & might just be his most vicious performance with the band so far. But on the other side of the coin, his beautiful singing on the chorus section feels the most haunting & captivating as well.

Again produced by guitarist Will Putney at his Graphic Nature Audio studio in Kinnelon, the album feels like his most perfectly captured FFAA album to date. Helming the riff writing & the sound desk knobs has helped the album feel like a cohesive effort.

When it comes to catchy riffs, FFAA has them in bucket loads, “Spoils Of The Horde”, with its barrage of palm-muted chugs & twirling licks that grab you hard. Following it up with a stompy chorus section, this one has great power & ferocity. A great bridge section lets the track breathe, and a soaring lead section plays while drummer Josean Orta & bassist Peter “Blue” Spinazola keep the track pulsing & with a strong backbone. As Bad screams, “All glory to the fires that never burnt out”, its repetition echoes as it fades into the void as the track leaves you beaten & shaken.

Showing some of the beautiful moments the band holds, “Red Horizon” opens with a quiet moment of a gorgeous clean guitar before switching on you & showing you the band’s other great power of their heavy chaos. This track’s chorus from Bad’s vocal is infectious & tantalising. Also, Orta gets to show off his skills on this track. Josean is such an underrated metal drummer & his tribal-like drumming and cymbal accents to the band’s riffs are so fantastically curated.

The breakdown on this track, too, is one of the heaviest the band have written to. With a great lyrical hook in tandem, this track’s final few moments are some of my favourites the band have created to date.

Bringing out the caveman in me, “Lower Purpose” is for the meathead. This track is a true mammoth. Hypnotic & syncopated, this track has riffs, earworm vocals & shotgun-like drums. The closest the band gets their toe in the deathcore world in this modern era, but it’s still in their DNA, and a track like this gives you that little dirty of the past but a great shine of the new. The pits on this one are gonna be ruthless.

The closing track, “The Silver Sun”, is an over six-minute opus. Feels like the most open & raw the band has ever been; this track has true power. Giving us another showcase of just how great Bad’s vocals are, this track stayed with me for a long time. As it builds, the band uses different moments to build its intensity with these little flourishes that even ten tracks in are breathtaking & surprising.

Since “The Great Collapse” and my delving into Fit For An Autopsy’s music, I’ve been waiting for the inevitable drop in quality in their music & it is rare for a band this far into their career to keep up the standard, but somehow Fit For An Autopsy still not only manage to keep their sound flawless they are always able to push their sound forward & firmly cement themselves as a band that will within the next few years be seen as this generation Lamb Of God or Machine Head. The music that they keep releasing is nothing but phenomenal.

Review: Joseph Mitchell