Next Time Mr. Fox
Babylon EP

With their previous album "Sunken City," Next Time Mr. Fox seemed poised to establish themselves firmly within the metalcore circuit, with an album whose main intent was to retrace the footsteps of the usual well-known names in the scene regarding breakdowns and ferociously frontal assaults in terms of riffing/lyrics. Today, three years later, here they are back on track with "Babylon," an EP that completely reshuffles the deck, showing us new artistic facets that had only been glimpsed in the previous work. While maintaining the same "core" approach as a base, in this mini album, they give the impression of wanting to venture into new contexts, sometimes succeeding (for the most part) and at other times less so. Starting with the strengths, the first single "Bestias" is certainly the most successful example of the entire batch, placing itself in the hardcore/beatdown trend popular today, and featuring a decidedly representative name of the current scene, Alex, frontman of the British band Malevolence. In the same vein, most of the remaining tracks follow, where riffing reminiscent of The Haunted school then leans on what bands like Sylosis and Viatrophy have subsequently added, and a vocal approach reminiscent of what was heard from Rise Of The Northstar leads to a final result that's not bad at all. The only note - as I mentioned - is the fact that while pushing beyond is always appreciated, I believe it should be considered based on the number of tracks offered. If, in an EP, we indeed have a reduced slice of tracks available, I find it rather risky to include something entirely unrelated, such as in this case a ballad. Youthful errors for sure, but they do not undermine the final result, which is certainly pleasant and successful as a whole.