3 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Merlin Alderslade)
It was a crime against British metal that didn’t make Employed To Serve absolutely massive. Released in the autumn of 2021, the Woking quintet’s fourth offering was an album of the year contender, opening up their once dense and scabrous brand of metallic hardcore to go straight for the jugular with the biggest, most hook-infested songs of their career. OK, they had a solid few years since, in fairness – touring arenas with and smashing main stage festival sets ain't nothing to be sniffed at – but in an era where genuinely heavy artists are and bagging Grammy nominations, it’s long past time one of the UK’s most consistent metal bands gets a seat at the big table.
If doesn’t take them there, then God is dead and Satan is sleeping, because Employed To Serve have dished up something special. Thankfully, they’ve resisted the temptation to just polish up their songs and go full ‘mainstream metal’ (no vocoders, EDM-core or here). What we have instead is another natural evolution for a band that refuse to stand still, honing their songcraft further without forgetting what made Employed To Serve exciting in the first place: riffs that rip your face off, breakdowns that blow your pants inside-out.
Opener wastes no time in setting out its stall, throwing up jangling hardcore riffs, pummelling blastbeats and guitarist/co-vocalist Sammy Urwin doing his best Tom Araya scream. It stomps its way into the kind of ferocious, swinging groove metal that underpinned much of , Justine Jones’s guttural roar of a visceral but catchy focal point. You could forgive Employed To Serve for sticking with that formula, but the title track is an instant left-turn, Justine’s wretched screams scratching around Sammy’s warm croons as the songs slips from glistening shoegaze to battering .
The welcome surprises don’t stop there. made headlines for featuring infamously savage Lorna Shore screamer , but it’s also Employed To Serve’s most instantaneous banger yet, skyscraper singalongs, old- school guitar solo and all. swerves sumptuously into twinkling gothic melodrama; , featuring Svalbard’s Serena Cherry, is gleaming 80s synth-rock wrapped up in propulsive heavy metal; Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach pops up for an impassioned cameo on searing death metal rager .
And the hooks keep coming – the choruses erupting out of and will stick in your head for days. Stuffed with lyrical themes of defiance, solidarity and rising above the bullshit, is an album whose message is delivered fervently and earnestly. Justine pledges, as wraps proceedings up on a sea of heart-bursting, histrionic post-black metal.
On the contrary, Employed To Serve have done themselves proud. This is their best album yet and a major contender for metal album of the year. Again.
Now make this band absolutely massive! Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others.
Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N' Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site..
