It seems both like almost no time at all and all the time in the world has passed since Motionless in White released new music, but Scoring the End of the World was released just a couple of weeks ago, and it was a welcome sound to my ears.
Somehow this band gets more excited with each album they put out, and that’s 100 percent what you want from a band. And even though it seems like they’ve been with the band for a while now, this is the first record to feature drummer Vinny Mauro and bassist Justin Morrow. Based on the release of the album’s first single, “Cyberhex,” I really thought the whole album would have a more industrial metal feel to it. Even when the three other subsequent singles were released and all sounded completely different, a large part of me still thought it was going to have that overarching industrial feel to it. I was wrong. Overall, it was a pretty eclectic-sounding album, although more similar to Disguise than I was anticipating.
While “Cyberhex” was obviously a strong lead single, other tracks off the record that really stood out to me were “Werewolf” and “Red, White, and Boom.” The first song was just awesome from start to finish and you know I love a song with a bunch of pop culture references. “Red, White, and Boom” had two things going for it. The first was that it featured Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo, and the second was that it was reminiscent of perhaps one of my favorite Motionless in White songs, “A.M.E.R.I.C.A.” There were also some Manson-esque vocals in the song which is always welcome to my ears. This is clearly a song that is meant to be chanted by a crowd, so I hope I get to be a part of that crowd very soon.
Other songs off the record that stood out to me were “Porcelain” and “Slaughterhouse” because of how different they were from each other. I also liked that the very heavy “Slaughterhouse” came right after “Porcelain.” That song, vocally, was delivered in a way unlike I’ve ever heard from them before. There were moments throughout when I thought the song could have come from Nothing More. “We Become the Night” eventually won me over because it sounded like if Marylin Manson and Panic! at the Disco decided to make a song together. The opening track, “Meltdown” was also pretty impactful because it felt like it was addressing all the garbage going on in the world right now. It’s also exactly the kind of song I was expecting after the pandemic. I think if you’re an artist, there’s no way the pandemic didn’t make it into your work somehow.
Honestly, the rest of the album was kind of generic for me. That’s not to say any of the rest of the songs were bad, there was just nothing that stood out about them from a listening perspective. And given that they aren’t one of my favorite bands, I highly doubt this whole record will be given another shot in the future. Aside from all of that, I’m glad the band is back and thriving (have you seen where this thing is on the charts?!), and I look forward to hopefully seeing them on a headlining tour soon.