Pleasant surprises are when He Is Legend not so subtly tease a new release and then the gotdamn thing actually materializes within the same year those aforementioned teases were made. The band that refuses to die, He Is Legend, is back with their seventh full-length rekkid called Endless Hallway and it is a glorious BEAST from beginning to end.
One of the best things about the new record is that it’s so dense and there’s so much happening within each track that you’ll look up from the stupor it’s put you in and constantly be pleasantly surprised that, lo and behold, there’s still a lot more to come….. and that’s not to say the record feels long by any means. Quite the contrary, actually, as it’s one of the most concise and direct He Is Legend records to date.
The first taste unleashed to the masses, “The Prowler” and “Lifeless Lemonade”, absolutely slay and were actually fair indicators of what fans are getting with Endless Hallway because this thing is undeniably HEAVY and these two tracks are definitely a fair litmus test of what the rest of the record is like. “Honey From The Hive” goes hard into a stellar groove with Schuylar Croom opening with a massive croon then goes into a full on aural assault with a motif that could only be described as strident. We say this a lot but this really is the sound of a band firing on all cylinders and probably one of the heaviest tracks He Is Legend has laid out since the I Am Hollywood daze. Hell, this whole dang affair is heavy as hell!
“Return To The Garden” is a clusterfuck of ideas that works really well when catapulted towards one another at exorbitant speeds beginning with Croom’s sinister delivery matching the overall tone as the start/stop madness spirals into a wicked sonic tornado with “Circus Circus” presenting another heavy shredder as Croom commits to some gnarly vocal tricks on this boogie woogie affair also highlighted by Shelley providing a constant beat while Matty Williams and Adam Tanbouz paint a pretty wall of sound with their respective bass and guitar playing.
“Seamistress” bludgeons with a beautifully crafted riffage fortress and Croom experimenting vocally yet again with “Sour” rounding the corner next and coming out the gates swinging with a lot of bite before settling into a big groove and sounding like “classic” He Is Legend. So for those of you yearning for the “I Am Hollywood sound” and intricate emo/metalcore nuances then this one’s for you. The title track has some Danny Elfman elements in it with the sing-songy playfulness it puts out in the world and then “Time’s Fake” starts like a Killswitch Engage shredfest but turns into a full on stomp with Shelley providing the poundings.
“Sink Hole” frickin’ rules with breakdown after breakdown with the first entering like a trippy Soundgarden-esque beastie before some scorching guitar lines and a haunting vocal passage and then ANOTHER breakdown drops that’s bigger and badder. “Animals” is another track on Endless Hallway that solidifies that that Southern-fried sleaze of old is still intact hearkening back to 2006’s Suck Out The Poison at times but sounding wholly bigger with some rad sing-a-long passages and a sludgy riff monster that brings to mind “That’s Nasty” from 2009’s, ahem, legendary It Hates You. Like all good things tend to do, though, HIL’s seventh has to come to an end eventually and for that big task, “Lord Slug” follows in a long line of epic album closers from the North Carolina outfit and, quite frankly, might be the best one yet??? It’s true! But don’t let us be the final say so judge for yourselves on November 11th!
Endless Hallway opens up on November 11th through Spinefarm Records. You can get yer pre-order and pre-save on now by heading here and then click away here, here, or here to follow He Is Legend across their socials and stay up-to-date on what’s to come.
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