It has been seven years since BLESSTHEFALL gave their fans a new album, but after much anticipation, Gallows is out on September 5th.
After years of fans questioning BLESSTHEFALL’s status, the band announced they will release a 10-track album, Gallows, which feels like a true revival after a seven-year hiatus without a new album. Fortunately for fans, four songs have been released from this album so far, going back to 2023. To help gain excitement and spread the word for the upcoming release, they kicked off their full resurrection by returning to Van’s Warped Tour for the sixth time this summer. Currently, the four core members are Beau Bokan as the singer with clean vocals, Jared Warth as the singer with harsh vocals along with bass, Eric Lambert on lead guitar, and Elliott Gruenberg on rhythm guitar.
The album opens with the previously released track, “Mallxcore.” This song was released as a single in June. Before the release, Beau promised “Big Things Coming” on social media, and they did not disappoint. Jerod’s growly vocals open the track and set the tone for the album. It doesn’t take long for Beau’s counter-clean vocals to come in and soften the tone and make it feel like a true BTF song. The second track, “Wake the Dead,” was released in 2023 with a music video. Again, this one opens with Jerod’s harsh vocals. This track is moving in a way that makes the listeners feel emboldened to stand up to oppression. Lyrically, it is a song about resilience to being oppressed.
The third track, “Venom,” speaks to the feeling of drowning from pressures of life and disappointment but still being “bad at giving up,” while also reminding listeners that sometimes we are our own worst enemies. The next track, “Somebody Else,” has guest artist Matt Flood from the band Caskets. It starts off with clean vocals right away, shifting the tone, alternating between a softer melody and short breakdowns. With lyrics like “tell me if you need somebody else,” “I can never be somebody else,” and “thinking of what we had,” it can easily be interpreted in many ways from whatever the listener is going through in their own lives at the time.
Up next is “Drag Me Under,” with guest artist Lochie Keogh from the band Alpha Wolf. This song was previously released in 2024. This song seemed to have mixed reviews online when it was first released, but that seems to have shifted to more positive reviews in recent months. The song has very hard and heavy moments musically. Lyrically, the feel of the song is about knowingly getting yourself into situations that are self-destructive, but doing it anyway. At just over halfway through the album is the title track, “Gallows.” It continues the hard and heavy beats but also a musically diverse track with a solid short drum solo. Screams of lyrics like “We were never built to break” make this seem like it will translate very well as a live song with active mosh pits and rows of crowdsurfers. If you have ever seen BTF live, then it is well-known that singer Beau Bokan loves to heavily encourage waves of crowdsurfing; this song seems as though it was made for this.
The next track, “Light the Flame,” is the most familiar-sounding song in some ways. There are more clean parts to this song than others on this album; however, this does not subtract from the quality. There are moments in the song where you are reminded that you are listening to a metalcore album. In July, “Fell So Hard, Felt So Right” was released. With guest Dan Marsala from the band Story of the Year, this song has the vibes that are reminiscent of a Witness-era song. Overall, it seems to be another track with a lot of emotional weight, such as feeling inadequate and unworthy. All the while, not wanting to accept having to start over when there are still so many open questions and emotions, while wondering, “How do we get back?”
The next-to-last song, “Y.S.A.B.” kicks in hard with a wonderful metalcore feel that fans have always loved from BTF. An acronym explained in the lyrics as “You’re Still A Bitch.” The track changes the pace and feels like taking power back from someone who stole the light inside you and left you with “broken wings.” The ending track of the album, “This Ends With Us,” is what can be called a traditional metalcore banger. The song is slightly more melodic than some of the others, but with brilliant guitar work that adds a different layer of complexity to the track. The song ends with a soft fadeout in what feels like a message in the form of an ellipsis, reminding listeners that “We all end the same.”
Overall, this album has moments where it is considerably harder than previous albums while firmly retaining the sound that their fanbase has always loved from them. At the same time, their evolution shows fans just how they have all changed over the last seven years since the last album release.
