"Fear Rejection" Revealed As New Our Anchored Hearts Single

Yeah, this one didn't live up to the hype. [PC: Corey Nathan Photography]

If you saw a Square Space built website being shared around these past two weeks from members of Drown This City, Diamond Construct, Honest Crooks, SETMEONFIRE, among others, you might have been wondering just what hell the go was. Well, we now have our answer on what it was all for - a brand new single from Sydney heavy outfit, Our Anchored Hearts.

Setting up a website to show photos of your mates from peer bands in the local heavy music scene repping new merch for your newest single - one pic per day over two weeks, and have everyone involved keep it under wraps - is great. Honestly, it's a good idea! And I can really respect a solid promo campaign in this day and age, (take Gravemind's awesome 'The Deathgate' EP promo from last year), and I'm a sucker for a well-done setup, such as this "Fear Rejection" instance.

Shit, even I was pretty keen to find out what the full reveal would be once the fortnightly countdown ended. Would it be a joint tour between all of these bands? Perhaps a one-dayer event in Melbourne or Sydney featuring each act playing live? Was it maybe a new collaborative studio project between all of these members? Or was it - as I first thought - a bunch of people just helping out the launch of mates new merch company?

As it turns out, no. The reveal came on Friday night and it was nothing quite as cool as those other examples. Instead, as stated, it was the release of the new single and music video from Sydney's Our Anchored Hearts; the rather generic, chug-heavy and dubstep-tinged metalcore tune, 'Fear Rejection'. (Taken from their new EP, 'FEAR', which drops on June 1st).

Oh.

Oh, that's it then? *sigh*.

Am I personally about this song? As you've gathered by the tone of this article so far, absolutely not. The track's choruses sound horribly forced in terms - shoe-horned into the mix without any real rhyme or reason, just for some bland "sing-along" factor. The low-tuned, high-gated and overly edited guitar riffs are super stock-standard for this style, and that melodically beautiful clean guitar bridge section towards the end was too short, to the point I sorely wished there was more of it for me to enjoy.

I do understand the song and its accompanying film clip's semi-philosophical, pseudo-political message of feeling completely destroyed by shitty office jobs, being a slave to the elite, wasting your life away, and grinding the corporate 9-5; so much so that you yearn to reject your inner fears, as it were, and step away to pursue something you actually care about. In finding beauty in the smaller things of life and all that jazz. It's a nice message, yes, but it isn't a new idea by any means. And, to be blunt, it doesn't land all that well due to the fact that 'Fear Rejection' is just such a run-of-the-mill metalcore track.

Also, despite Our Anchored Hearts "Progressive Metal" tagline, they just aren't as musically eclectic, as instrumentally interesting or as experimental enough overall to warrant being labelled progressive. (Going off of this new song, at least). And if we're really gonna split sub-genre hairs, at the absolute best they might get away with being called "prog-metal", but I'd say that very hesitantly. Actually, fuck it, no. It's just metalcore, okay? It's just metalcore, guys.

Look, the TL;DR here is: real props to these guys for the engagingly solid promo campaign behind their new single and this new EP announcement, zero props for the actual song itself.

Of course, that's just me. Please make up your own mind about this new Our Anchored Hearts track below: