Orthodox

What got out of Orthodox’s A Door Left Open was a capital M Monolithic Metal record, which accomplished its goal of approximating the dread one would feel coming home to a door ajar. The lack of subgenres attached to the overarching weight doesn’t mean there weren’t influences from heavy music’s history, rather that attempting to sum it up would be a hyphenated mess as chaotic as opener “Can You Save Me?” and far less pointed and poignant than the album-ending monologue making up the middle section of closer ‘Will You Hate Me?” Between the album’s poles—start-and-stop metallic hardcore ala Converge and relative calm, almost post-metal-esque diversity (see what we mean about those hyphens?)—the Nashville/Columbus-based quintet have made nu feel new again.

It’s at the apex of the densest elements of innovative subgenres like nu metal and metalcore, both which added aggression to softening metals, that Orthodox craft their own take on “The Heaviest Matter of the Universe.” Similar to peers like Knocked Loose, Harms Way and Jesus Piece, the band mutate metal’s most groovy elements into a molten alloy as scalding as it is dense. (That they’re joined by Matt McDougal, Andrew Neufeld and Brann Dailor on guest vocals only adds to the oomph.) In the case of Orthodox, call it “Dread Weight” after the track of the same name, and be prepared to be crushed—as many have through tours with the likes of The Acacia Strain, Stick To Your Guns, Boundaries, Dying Wish, and more.

From the floor to a massive stage, from hardcore to metal, and everything in between, Orthodox have built a name on fervent, visceral live shows. With their most blunt album, both lyrically and musically, the wrecking ball that is Orthodox is coming to shatter expectations and minds of fans of metal and hardcore alike. Their powerful alloy ensures it doesn’t matter if there was, ahem, A Door Left Open or not, with their latest album, they’ve kicked theirs off its hinges—if not turned it into dust.