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When Motionless In White first emerged in 2004, they seemed to know exactly who they were aesthetically, but not so much musically. All too often, it seemed their gothic/nu metal/industrial blend was an enthusiastic cut and paste from other bands, and while there’s nothing wrong with having influences, it often left the Pennsylvanians looking like they were still searching for a sonic identity of their own.
2022’s Scoring The End Of The World album got them close to that goal, but while they’ll always doff a cap to Korn, Slipknot and Rob Zombie, on their seventh album, Decades, they’ve finally learned to harness that admiration and make it their own.
Take single Playing God: while it rides in on a torrent of maniacal drums like an early 2000s Slipknot cut, sinister synths ensure it’s identifiable as the product of its creators. It’s also the heaviest Motionless In White have ever sounded, with some additional heft coming from an almost comically aggressive performance from Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor – who must have relished the opportunity to rage against the superficiality of social media.
Corey and Motionless singer Chris Cerulli bring the song to a close with a bang, issuing the year’s most disdainful mosh call: ‘Grovel like a bitch on your knees for the applause / Lick the fucking dirt off my boots like a good dog’, but the point is it doesn’t sound like a Slipknot song – a pitfall you suspect Motionless In White would have fallen into only a few years ago.
Meanwhile, All That I’ve Ever Known and Blood Rave turn up the incorporation of cyber-synths. The former is a volcanic landscape of glitches, squeals and drops, the latter is a tranced-up dance number and Fight Like Hell revisits the ‘This is my brutality!’ bellow from Demon In Your Dreams, otherwise known as WWE wrestler Rhea Ripley’s 2022 theme song. It all feels like the first Motionless album that isn’t a game of Spot The Band.
The horror element the band do so well is in full force here too and it’s presented with a slashed-lipstick smirk, such as on the opening title track, where Chris gleefully tells his haters: ‘Still here, count the years, fuck a tombstone.’ It sounds like Motionless In White are having fun, revelling in profane, dark humour. Love At First Bite is awash with spooky, Halloweeny keys and tongue-in-cheek statements: ‘I’m a sucker for a good time.’
Of course, it also helps that Chris Ceruli has become a second-to-none vocalist and frontman. His performance on Afraid Of The Dark, which smashes throwback 2000s-era metalcore riffs with a stomping, demonic breakdown, pushes his range to the very limit. He paints himself as an eternally suffering romantic on vampiric electro-ballad R.I.P., featuring pop/hip-hop artist Skylar Grey, and puts in a deliciously smooth croon on a wonderfully goth cover of Corey Hart’s dark 80s classic, Sunglasses At Night.
It all adds up to the most impressive Motionless In White album so far – fun, memorable, satisfying and, most importantly, it feels like them.
This review was taken from the upcoming issue of Metal Hammer, available to order from Thursday (July 23). Decades is out now via Roadrunner. Motionless In White will tour North America from July to November.
