Decayer Breathe Life & Emotion Into Deathcore With '16 Roses'

Decayer made a stale & generic genre like deathcore feel emotional & relatable with their gut-wrenching new single, '16 Roses'.

As longtime readers of KYS will know about me, when it comes to deathcore, there are very few deathcore bands that I genuinely care about because so fucking many of them just regurgitate one another's sound, all the while trying to out "heavy" their peers. Which just means that so many groups these days write themselves into a tiny, dark corner and they cannot escape from it.

There are a handful of bands that I really do believe in, from big league acts like Whitechapel and Oceano, to Australian locals such as I, Valiance, Gravemind, and A Night In Texas because they're all arguably doing deathcore the best. And with the exception of ANIT and Oceano, are all trying to add new ideas and stand out and branch away from the larger herd that's heading off to the slaughterhouse.

One such band that also fits this category this is American outfit, Decayer, who've recently offered up one of the most open-diary, heart-on-your-sleeve expressions of extremeness I've ever heard from a deathcore band: '16 Roses'.

This passionate new single is incredibly close and dear to the Tuscon five-piece, as it tells the deeply personal story of their vocalist Harrison Burkardt tragically losing his sister earlier this year to cancer. She was just 16-years-old.

The song's harrowing lyrics detail the sister's battle with cancer, how their vocalist handled it, the memories they had together, how she changed his life for the better, her eventual passing, and how he mourns his sister. This tale of losing a loved one is on a whole other level of emotional intensity than what you normally get from a genre so often concerned with shitting on religion, telling stories about intergalactic aliens, waxing lyrical about the apocalypse, and carving people up.

Sure, '16 Roses' has all of the high-shrieks, guttural vocals, massive breakdowns, gated-riffs, and slick production hallmarks of modern deathcore - all of the bells and whistles if you will. Yet this heart-breaking track has more impact and soul than most other deathcore bands of this ilk. With Decayer's fuck-off heavy instrumentation, subtle melodic tendencies, and the equally pained and immense vocals from Burkardt, it all adds to the insane weight of this passionate but brutal composition. It's the kind of deathcore you've most likely heard before but on more or less deeper level.

'16 Roses' is ludicrously heavy (in multiple respects) but it's also a surprisingly moving journey, one that will help get the band's vocalist on the path to recovery and to find closure in some ways. And while I don't know the guy at all, I sincerely hope that Harrison can find that peace one day.

Decayer's newest EP, 'The Agony Cycle', drops March 13th via Chugcore.