Seven years since 2018’s ‘Hard Feelings’, and blessthefall are back with their most vicious outing yet. The Arizona metalcore mainstays have been biding their time. It turns out, sometimes you need a little perspective to find inspiration, and ‘Gallows’ – fittingly their seventh outing – finds the four-piece navigating this new outlook.
“[‘Hard Feelings’] didn’t get the reception that we had hoped for, it’s weird to say, but I feel like the cover of the album threw a lot of people off, because it looked like it could have been a 1975 record,” vocalist Beau Bokan laughs. “It was the neon and white brick wall, but it was a heavy, heavy album. It was really dark, but people didn’t give it a real chance.”
Admitting that some passion was lost, and coming at a time when he felt there was a saturation in their genre-space, blessthefall decided to take a breather. It was a reasonable enough move given they’d been non-stop since first starting up in 2008, and with a changing lineup throughout the years – now solidified with Jared Warth (bass, unclean vocals), Eric Lambert (guitar), and Elliot Gruenberg (guitar) – and a run of albums every couple of years, blessthefall had indeed earned a bit of a rest.
Beau spent this time starting a career in videography as well as leaning into being a hockey dad for his daughter. “I was exhausted from being on the road, honestly, coming home and being Dad was super fun,” he beams. His identity morphing from the band-on-the-run guy for the last decade wasn’t as difficult as he thought. Sure, there were elements he missed, such as the camaraderie between bandmates and connecting with the fans. “Seeing people be impacted by your music is super special, and we’ll never take that for granted,” he says. “That was always really fun. Especially when you’re weeks and weeks on the road and you’re tired and you want to go home, and then you get on stage and you see everyone stoked, it makes it worth it.”
“If it starts to feel like it’s a job, then we’ll stop”
This is what ‘Gallows’ holds at its core. It’s blessthefall returning on their terms, ready to embrace the future, whatever that entails. They’re well armed in the understanding that they’re in control now. “If it starts to feel like it’s a job and it starts to not be fulfilling, then we’ll stop, that’s where our heads are at,” Beau explains. “As long as everyone’s stoked on it and everyone’s happy and we’re making sure we have time with our families, that is the most important thing.”
While they had to build back up to this moment, it means they’re in far better standing for this new chapter. “The realisation that we can have life after the band was huge, right? I think a lot of people struggle with that.” Being able to retain that normalcy and his family life is equal to, if not more important than, any success blessthefall could offer.
Wanting things to be on their terms, it was only when they were ready, rather than be any contractual obligation, that it would happen. “It was a slow, slow, slow burn, and at our own pace, which is awesome,” Beau chuckles. “We’ve never had the chance to do that since I joined the band in 2008. It’s been an album every two years, nonstop on the road.” Letting those brakes off finally, it took a while for the cogs to begin turning. With Beau flying out to his bandmates every few months, they’d work on songs with no expectations, just sounding out this new era. Over a couple of years, they eventually released 2023’s ‘Wake The Dead’, which gave the band a much-needed burst of inspiration.
“That was a huge moment for us to recognise that there was a want for our music,” Beau recalls. “Our monthly Spotify listeners never went below, like 700,000 monthly, which some people are getting millions, but for us, for a band that was not active for years and years, it was so sick to see that that never dropped.”
“We had mentally prepared for if our band was finished”
‘Wake The Dead’ was a tentative moment, most of all because of how they’d left their career after ‘Hard Feelings’. Beau admits that they were prepared for the worst. “We had mentally prepared for if our band was finished,” he reveals. “We did a great job while we were around. We got to play Warped Tour five times. We got to play shows with some of our favourite bands in the world. We got to see the world… so I think we were kind of at the point where, like, if it’s over, it’s over. We gave it our all. And that’s pretty much what went into this album.”
This lends itself to the gates-unleashed element to ‘Gallows’. It’s a reinvigorated state of play, featuring more brutal breakdowns, soaring melodies, and a refuelled energy that only a bit of time out can offer. “It was pretty low pressure, which made it something really special,” Beau remembers. “We didn’t post that we were in the studio. No one knew that this was coming. So I think that helped us organically take our time with it; if a song wasn’t great, we didn’t have to put it out. I think it shows in the music that we were in a cool place, and we wanted to write for our fans, and we wanted our fans to hear blessthefall, but a newer, updated version of it,” he says.
Keeping ‘Gallows’ as a blessthefall return came in part to producer Hiram Hernandez. A longtime fan of the band, he was able to steer them in the right direction. “He was telling us, from his perspective as someone who has enjoyed our music, what he would love to hear,” Beau says. “And if something sounded a little too weird, he’d tell us if we’re jumping the shark with this. He did a great job helping us take our sound and amplifying it.”
This part is key because they’re aware that in seven years, a lot can change. Many bands have ascended to continue shaping the alt-sound landscape, “Between, like Sleep Token, Bad Omens and Spiritbox, and all these massive bands that are adjacent to our genre, they sound incredible, so we needed to make sure we are at that calibre, but maintaining our sound.”
“Our fans are the kids that hang out at the mall, and that’s fine”
blessthefall’s sound is what one foot in the past, in the best way possible. They’re a part of scene history, having ascended in the period before streaming truly took over, and the tangible world – such as scene locales like malls – became redundant. Online commenters often referred to them as ‘mall core’, which is why ‘mallxcore’ opens the album, and was released as a single: it’s blessthefall embracing their foundations.
“We’ve always had the outlook on our band that we write these big pop choruses, and we write breakdowns, but in the end, we’re not like a true metal band, and our fans go to Hot Topic, you know what I mean?” Beau laughs. “Our fans are the kids that hang out at the mall, and that’s fine. We own it, and we lean into it, and we are happy that we even have a genre to be part of.”
Earnestly embracing their journey and what they’ve built, blessthefall are in a greater stead than they’ve ever been. Realising that times change with the tide, as long as they’re having a blast, that’s all that matters. “Everything has an expiration date, and we’ve become comfortable with the idea that people could just stop listening to us one day, which will happen,” he shrugs. “And there’ll be a new cool thing, and that’s cool, but we will go down knowing that we wrote the best songs that we could, we had the best time.”
It’s what’s helped them return to this fast-paced world, giving them a hunger to continue. They’ve earned their stripes, no matter what anyone says, and the fact that upon returning into the world, they have a waiting audience speaks volumes. “It was very humbling, you know? This is special,” Beau smiles. “I’m glad we did it. I’m glad we didn’t call it quits.” Now, there’s nothing in blessthefall’s way; the future is brighter than ever.
blessthefall’s album ‘Gallows’ is out now.
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