REVIEW: Death of Youth - Nothing Is The Same Anymore
- Amy Smyth
- 34 minutes ago
- 4 min read
London's very own DEATH OF YOUTH are back with Nothing Is The Same Anymore, their second full length album since their debut in 2018. Having been almost five years since their last release, the band’s progression and improvement is all portrayed through this nine track album. It takes you through all walks of genres, the foundation being hardcore, but with influences drawn from all over like Midwest emo, screamo and 2000's post hardcore. The band only has a small following that does not at all reflect the talent and care put into this album, underrated isn’t a word we like to use lightly but it seems necessary to describe this band as so.
Desensitised opens with crashing waves of growing riffs before the desolate screaming joins the chorus. The lyrics explore the themes of the media desensitising the public to the horrid goings on in the world, being extremely relevant to the current times. The minor riffs perfectly paint the rage and helplessness that the lyrics speak with amounts of distortion that make the sound feel as grand as an ocean that drowns the listener. As the first track set the tone for the album, the second track Rumination continues the desolation, with a shorter runtime but a faster beat, the riffs cycle round feeling like a churning stomach. The song changes tempo half way through switching to a jumpier beat flawlessly switching between the two bpms, then ringing out at the end of the track.
Fix Your Heart or Die is the only track that has been released before the album, it draws more influence from those nostalgic 2000's post hardcore guitars. The number is very catchy and is clear to see why this was the pre-released track and is probably the most notable from the album for us at Out Of Rage. Around the two minute mark it drops into a half time breakdown and a chorus of screaming vocals, creating a grand feeling of doom and longing. Bystander opens more mellow than the rest of the album and is then followed by a spoken monologue as the music builds behind it. The monologue bashes the justice system and calls for revolution before jumping into hardcore chorus as the vocals morph to screams of frustration. The last minute builds and builds, the kind of lines you can picture a packed sweaty venue all shouting together.
The fifth track brings the biggest change in the album so far with The Inverse of Patriotism leaning more towards a punk aesthetic. The song is fast paced with rampant drums and distorted guitars, the song has a disrupted structure giving no clues to what's happening next. Invertebrate leads with a nostalgic guitar riff, extremely reminiscent of those that lined the early lives of most alternative fans. At this point in the album, many of the songs do seem to meld into each other but that's not a knock to the quality of each of them individually. Each track is well produced and is a great display of composition and talent but the band would definitely benefit from branching out to different sounds and genres.
Performance Art features more solo guitar sections and brings in a different beat with a hint of an electronic bass to add to its building bridge section. The breakdown is catastrophic with lines you can picture fans screaming together with the artist which leads to the end of the song, pattering out and leading into the next. Castle Rock melds together two vocal tones we've heard in the rest of the album with screams that become so desperate it's like spoken word. The instrumental is slower and hopeless in tone with guitars and bass dancing around each other and a beat that drags you through the track. Ending in a grand instrumental that echoes and again leads into the next making a three song amalgamation that takes you through many different notions.
The last track Nothing is the Same Anymore, with the same name as the album it bursts straight into a full track with no time wasted on an intro. The lyrics are much more personal than the rest of the album, directly targeting a past that the protagonist is trying desperately to remove themselves from with the mark still deeply engrained in them. The track really leads back into the first track of the album being very similar in sound; it's an album that would be easy to instantly press replay on.
The album isn't perfect but it is raw, it is a genuine accumulation of anger that most people living in this time feel and the music does a brilliant job at reflecting that. The album is bursting at the seams with real gritty and nostalgic hardcore and it seems the band will only go up from here. With a few gigs planned for the year, we hope to see them grow and flourish within the scene in 2026 and this album is just the start.
Score: 7/10
Nothing Is The Same Anymore will be released on 16th February 2026 via Engineer Records and Grapes of Wrath Records
Words: Amy Smyth
Photos: Death of Youth
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