Then there’s the pairing of Silk In The Strings and Holy Roller, which showcase Spiritbox at their most brutal. It’s not just Courtney’s incendiary vocal delivery, but the combination of Mike’s guitar and electronics that widen the scope and drama. Despite Holy Roller’s video (inspired by cult horror Midsommar) having been around since last July, its mechanical-to-human rage remains undiminished, a thunder of self-renewing shockwaves. Make no mistake – you’re just a particle now, and Spiritbox are the Hadron Collider.
Elsewhere, on Secret Garden and The Summit, dreamlike soundscapes evolve into sky-seeking feeling-drenched vocals, while the title track angles for clarity as Courtney bids to silence the black dog. Introduce thrilling stabs of heavy and Mike’s melancholy solo, and the singer’s plea to make ‘my blood slow down’ is complete. Constance, which closes the album, remains an uneasy stand-out built on shifting musical sands. Reflecting the creeping horror of its subject matter, dementia, it climaxes in lurching, grungy confusion, like an unfamiliar world opening up at the precise moment we thought we had our bearings.
This is the thing with Spiritbox: they spin you around. Eternal Blue is dizzying, cleansing and frightening. You need to delve deep to find your place within it, but that journey is the very thing that makes this album so interesting. It’s an entrance that brings darkness and beauty in shades of heavy that you haven’t quite encountered before. So humane and startling is its message that it clearly hasn’t come from the ‘other side’, but from the one we’re all about to join.
Verdict: 5/5
For fans of: Deftones, Gojira, In This Moment
Eternal Blue is released on September 17 via Rise.