Poison The Well
The Opposite Of December

THE REVIEW

The portrait of the deepest and darkest sides of the human soul. That's what this album is. Pain, anger, despair. But also sweetness and poetry. It's impossible not to be fascinated by it. Poison The Well is a metalcore band from Florida, presenting their debut album after an excellent EP. An album that leaves you literally breathless, brilliant. Yes, because brilliant is the word that seems most fitting to describe it.

Listening to an album like this is not an everyday occurrence, and perhaps none so intense and moving have been heard in who knows how long. An album entirely founded on emotional intensity, it seems to seek how far music can push in the inner quest for the purest and deepest human emotions. Dark and sharp riffs strike the listener, with singer Jeffrey Moreira, in his cry of despair, accompanying you in the search for your deepest emotions. The guitars attack and trap you, while the relentless drums aid them before shining rarefied flashes of light come to save you.
Here's Moreira's scream in the opener "12-23-93" while the guitars follow, pounding in perfect hardcore style, and anger surrounds you before reaching the point where everything relaxes, and peace returns... only to return again to the starting point, but just for a moment: here comes a spine-chilling finale, where the voice and all the instruments seem to be in agreement to make their emotions tangible and thus capture your soul. Just the first song and there's already applause due. But better to save it for later because the journey has just begun... and continues like this through 9 tracks, with "Nerdy", which after an obsessive and despair-laden hardcore attack surprises you with a tear-jerking melody, a tiny glimpse of light, the standard-bearer of exquisite and delicate desolation, before speeding up again to an almost death-like finale; with "Mirror No Reflection" being the perfect picture of spiritual resignation; with "Slice Paper Wrists", which enlists the help of a depressed and unbelievably intense emo to make you feel even more before a splendid ending, not to mention "To Mandate Heaven", a concentration of emotions in just 2.50 minutes... Only a few moments of melody. Sure, when they are there, they last a short time, but every single note would suffice to bring a tear. And so you have to enjoy those moments to the fullest.
Every song, therefore, plays on mood change, on the light that glimpses through the darkness, further accentuating that emotional hardcore spirit already introduced by others such as Shai Hulud, who along with Poison The Well, are among the best in the more emotional hardcore scene. In short, a gust of anger, extremely intense and filled with hatred, with melodies that timidly emerge like small glimpses of light. Their main characteristic is creating songs that marry the rawest hardcore violence with melodies full of desolation and pain so perfectly as to create music that is almost 'alive', that feels emotions by itself, a perfect portrait of spiritual and psychological negativity.

In short, brilliant maybe even without knowing it, thinking of being a simple metal-core band. But why am I writing this? This is an album you have to buy and discover for yourself to uncover the brilliance, the absolute, incredible, uncontrollable, and tangible brilliance of this great, tremendously great group, although I'm sure it will be difficult for many to understand (P.S. the artwork is gorgeous too!).
Absolute masterpiece.