After almost 7 years of waiting, no releases, and no headlining tours; Pierce The Veil is back with a beautiful new album, The Jaws Of Life. The Jaws Of Life follows the 2016 album Misadventures, making this album Pierce The Veil's fifth studio album. This album has 12 tracks, 3 of these 12 having been released as singles previously. They chose the perfect time to have their comeback, with other classic emo bands such as My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Fall Out Boy all having their own comebacks within the last year by releasing new music and announcing tours. The album's release date, February 10th, also happened to coincide with both Paramore's sixth studio album, This Is Why, and Linkin Park's single, "Lost".
The album beings with an indie rock intro, "Death Of An Executioner." This song has a similar sound to "I'm Low On Gas And You Need A Jacket" off of their third studio album, Collide With The Sky. The album then continues into the three previously released singles, "Pass The Nirvana," "Even When I'm Not With You," and "Emergency Contact." "Pass The Nirvana," the first single released out of the three, remains to be the hardest song on the album, bringing the heaviest punk rock sound to the album. "Even When I'm Not With You" and "Emergency Contact" are both very indie rock styled, and are close to even being acoustic. They're both love songs, which makes sense for their style. A good amount of the album is made up of soft pop/indie rock styled songs like this, excluding "Pass The Nirvana," "Damn The Man, Save The Empire," and "Death Of An Executioner," as these three tracks have heavier vocals and instrumentals that have more resemblance to their harder, older songs, and do not have as much of a indie pop influence that the other tracks have.
After "Emergency Contact," we are given two more pop rock songs, "Flawless Execution" and the album's title track, "The Jaws Of Life." Both of these have soft, melodic guitar riffs and bass lines, and there are mainly clean vocals from Vic, excluding a few screamed backing vocals within "The Jaws Of Life."
After these two, "Damn The Man, Save The Empire" and "Resilience." "Damn The Man, Save The Empire" brings back slightly more aggressive instrumentals and vocals. "Damn The Man, Save The Empire," has screamed backing vocals and both clean and gritty leading vocals. "Resilience" is similar to the two predating "Damn The Man, Save The Empire," using more clean vocals and atmospheric instrumentals. This is followed by an instrumental interlude, titled "Irrational Fears."
After the interlude, one of the softest songs, "Shared Trauma," begins. The instrumental is almost entirely electric, not featuring much bass, guitar, or drums at all. Vic's vocals are extremely clean in this track, the whole song is very atmospheric, and the instrumental is almost akin to lo-fi or dream pop.
Finally, we reach the last two tracks, "So Far So Fake" and "12 Fractures." "So Far So Fake" is much different than "Shared Trauma," as it brings back the guitar, bass, and drum instrumentals, and there's even a guitar solo within the song. There are also more screamed backing vocals within it, and more strained leading vocals. The ending track, "12 fractures," is much more indie than the previous song, and is the only song on The Jaws Of Life that has a feature. It features indie pop soloist, Chloe Moriondo. This is yet another track that Vic utilizes mainly clean vocals, although he does occasionally use vocal strain. The instrumental is almost acoustic, relying mainly on guitar, with very occasional drums.
Although this sound is different than what some may see as being Pierce The Veil's "normal," sound, it remains to be amazing. They didn't just cash in on nostalgia and remake an old album; they created something entirely new.
Pierce The Veil will be going on tour in 2023 and 2024, you can buy tickets here! You can follow and support them in this new era on their twitter, instagram, or tiktok.
haii!! just wanted to tell you that in the first sentence of the second paragraph it says “beings” instead of “begins” ^_^