Fit for an Autopsy - The Great Collapse

Fit for an Autopsy has been a band I have enjoyed ever since hearing their 2013 effort Hellbound, and their more melodic approach to deathcore, which bears a strong resemblance to and suggests influence from As I Lay Dying, reveals the viability (perhaps even necessity) of the integration of more melodic elements into deathcore, many of whose fans and prominent figures could use a much more mature attitude toward things like clean vocals and branching out stylistically and melodically; many wonder what causes incessant talk of deathcore dying out, and it’s largely due to the inability/reluctance of the subgenre’s main figureheads to do much of anything with the style that doesn’t fit snuggly into the all the generic molds that exist in the subgenre (largely for the sake of being as brutal as possible and largely yielding highly similar results from its various inputs). The Great Collapse comes as the first large-scale deathcore release of the year (aside from Emmure’s step up in form on their new album) after the very fractured, yet steadfast, deathcore community turned its frustrated ears away from Suicide Silence in such remarkably huge unison after all their shenanigans so far this year. While Fit for an Autopsy, to my knowledge, didn’t really play much of a role in or participate in the mudslinging that was going on for the greater part of the last two months, this album, in a way serves as a referendum, whether intentional or not, on Suicide Silence’s “mission” to “save deathcore” with an injection of clean vocals and increased melodic prominence. And I think there could not have been a more fitting band, well-versed in more-melodic-than-average deathcore to usher in the post-Suicide-Silence-self-titled era of deathcore than Fit for and Autopsy. And they did so quite well, I think.

I’m not trying to bag on Suicide Silence (I have enjoyed a lot of their music) or elevate Fit for and Autopsy above them or elevate The Great Collapse beyond what it really is in terms of the music alone. I just think it’s is worth noting the irony that Fit for an Autopsy have been on Suicide Silence’s “mission” for years now and the former has put out another release demonstrating their prowess in combatting the staleness that the latter tried to escape rather lazily via an album they tried to pass off as doing what the former has done. Sorry for that sentence, I hope I didn’t lose anyone in there.
The Great Collapse does a great job of showcasing the numerous ways in which deathcore can benefit from the introduction of melodic elements to the already naturally brutal style of music that is deathcore. Indeed, Fit for an Autopsy prove that the balance between brutality and melody is not that hard to attain and that it actually helps accent the heaviness of the death metal backbone of the genre (which is not rocket science). If this album were just a generic deathcore effort with a little more vocal range, however, I would not even be talking about it. What makes The Great Collapse stand out and Fit for an Autopsy one of the bands I find most reliable in deathcore, is that they make great use of what works well in deathcore and, by not overdoing it or relying too heavily on certain rigid structures, they succumb very little to the traps of deathcore boredom. The familiarities are there, no doubt, but Fit for an Autopsy keep them brief and introduce outside ideas into their songs, like the very Gojira-esque pick scraping and low-string tapping on “Heads Will Hang” and the dynamic between ambient guitar and metalcore that drives “When the Bulbs Burn Out” to a more emotionally complex climax than is found in the entirety of most deathcore albums. “Hydra” kicks off the album in a manner as familiar and intense as can be and gets the album’s one standard, but well-executed, breakdown out of the way quickly. “Black Mammoth” provides a wide open path through a resonant four-and-a-half minutes of down-tuned sludge that brings just a bit of melody to the mix and results in an atmospherically cavernous slow-burner of sorts, which “Terraform” sustains and picks up the tempo of just a bit to segue smoothly into the pummeling heaviness of “Iron Moon”. The serene clean guitar that supports “Empty Still” until its down-tuned chug-fest compliments its preceding and successive movements surprisingly well. “Spiral” does a nice job of summarizing the album’s explicit deathcore skeleton and its melodic body in one song with numerous interesting segments, finishing the album properly.
While Fit for an Autopsy have stood out from the deathcore crowd rather consistently, their albums have still struggled to some degree with a certain level of homogeneity, but The Great Collapse finds them struggling with it a little bit less than they have in the past and it made for an, overall, pretty compelling listen, which is much more than I can say for a lot of deathcore, even top-shelf deathcore, these days. I hope this album turns out to be a success because I am very much in favor of the direction in which they are pushing deathcore, seemingly somewhat without a lot of assistance from other groups. And I hope they continue to push deathcore further melodically the way they have been pushing it. I like what they’re doing. And I like The Great Collapse.