Let’s take a minute and talk about hype. We all have a vague notion of what it is, but how does one obtain it? Can it be harnessed long term or is it a matter of riding that wave while it’s marginally available? For instance, how did Job For A Cowboy use it to jump from MySpace unto Metal Blade? Beats me. Whatever the case may be, it appears abundantly clear that Spiritbox know how to tap into it and are doing so on Eternal Blue (Rise Records). But can Spiritbox carry this momentum all through an album?

It’s a question certainly worth asking when noting that Eternal Blue is Spiritbox’s debut LP. Who in the metal community has all their singles with millions of plays on Spotify before the debut formally drops? ‘Holy Roller’ is north of 9 million spins as of this writing. Shit, most local bands I’m familiar with have at least a couple of full-lengths and a slew of EPs before making serious inroads into national level touring. What do we know about Spiritbox? Vocalist Courtney LaPlante and guitarist Mike Stringer plied their trade in iwrestledabearonce, but that can only carry you so far. What I’ve learned from the first spin of Eternal Blue is that these songs don’t overstay their welcome and jump right into the next with an economy that recalls Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Another ace up the sleeve is LaPlante’s Killswitch Engage-level penchant for catchy choruses and hooks. You liked ‘Secret Garden’? Well, congratulations, because it’s going to reside in your head for the next four months. Same goes for the title track which isn’t afraid to some Tesseract staccato riffs going late. Same gameplan is executed masterfully on the earworm that is ‘We Live In A Strange World.’

The online hate is due any minute now with this one, but I don’t think the mission statement here was to be the next Meshuggah. I’m genuinely curious to see how far Spiritbox can go off the back of this album.

Buy the album here: https://riserecords.lnk.to/eternalblue

8 / 10

HANS LOPEZ