When I first heard about Ice Nine Kills and their horror themed metalcore record coming out, I felt it was a bit gimmicky and didn't bother to spin it at first. After the record dropped, I saw Nik Nocturnal's reaction video to Take Your Pick and I realised that there was a lot, lot more to the album than just an interesting theme.
Welcome To Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2 is the sequel to The Silver Scream, a critically acclaimed metalcore record that I have never heard of. Even till now, I have yet to listen to it, but it's clear they made a name for themselves with that record, and cemented it even further in this one.
My favourite thing about this record is, despite the limitations of being horror movie-based songs, they manage to weave such intricate songs out of it, staying true and paying tribute to the context of the cinematics whilst putting their own twist on the musical aspect. They manage to capture the essence of each movie quite well, yet able to excel in bringing the best of metalcore into it. There are so many layers going on in the soundscape at any time, and it's clear they put a lot of thought and effort into making the music really immersive and high quality.
It's unbelievable how talented the whole band is. Their identity is apparent in every song and their songwriting is full of character, no matter who's perspective they're writing from. The drumming is expert and always the perfect amount of intensity for the moment, and some of the double kicks are insanely fast. The guitarwork throughout the record is wild, never focusing on riffing but always complementing the song's needs. Sure, there are solos here and there that are crazy tasteful, but I adore how the guitar licks underlying the vocals tend to help set up the atmosphere and sprinkle in some fun personality. The vocals are undeniably robust, whether clean or unclean. Spencer's cleans are powerful and anthemic at times, and both his and Ricky's screams are violently perfect. I love how the band works as a whole more than just constituent parts, always constantly aware of how to complement each other's sonic potential to create such disgustingly beautiful music.
The guest spots are super cool, albeit some of them being underutilised. Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach is such a cool person in general, but I felt like I didn't even know he was on the song. Brandon Saller of Atreyu, Ryan Kirby of Fit For A King and Buddy Nielsen of Senses Fail were decent guest vocalists, but it felt like the only guest vocalist who really injected any kind of their personality and presence into the song they guested on was Corpsegrinder.
Gripes aside, the record as a whole is pristine. Their choruses on just about every song is superb, the drumming is super clean and punchy, the guitarwork is insane and stylistic. I love all the little additional sounds they throw in, never sticking to the basic metalcore sounds. The choirs on A Rash Decision, the toy sounds in Assault & Batteries' breakdown, the iconic horror sound in The Shower Scene, cowbells on Hip To Be Scared, high pitched vocals on Take Your Pick, and movie screams on Wurst Vacation. There's so much character in every song I can't help but fall in love with how diverse this record becomes. It's an amazing metalcore piece of art, and was one of the best things to come out of 2021.
Rating: 9/10