Forty Winters – Rotting Empire (Review)

This is the second album from US metalcore band Forty Winters.

This is metalcore in its original, hard-as-nails metallic hardcore incarnation, before the advent of sing-along choruses and radio-friendly unit shifters. Forty Winters mean business, and they’re here to stomp all over your breakfast.

This is angry music for angry people doing angry things. If you get off on bands like Hatebreed, Himsa, Thy Art Is Murder, Suicide Silence, Walls of Jericho, Darkest Hour and the like, then this should be on your shopping list.

A band like this demands a dense, heavy, professional production. Well, what Forty Winters demand, they obviously get, as I certainly wouldn’t like to be the one that says no to them. At any rate, Rotting Empire sounds suitably huge and crushing.

If you find yourself not physically moving around when listening to this, you might want to check your pulse as you may have a serious condition that you need to be concerned about. If you don’t have any life-threatening issues, (hopefully not), then why the hell aren’t you bouncing around and windmilling all over the place? What? You’re in the middle of the queue in some crappy coffee shop, reading this on your equally-crappy smartphone? Well, who cares? The world needs more moshpits.

But anyway.

I digress.

The songs on this short release are all ridiculously enjoyable, taking me back to the 90s/00s in some ways. Their authentic brand of metalcore is so well-done that it almost seems of the era when it was first breaking big, apart from the huge, modern production, of course.

Rotting Empire is chock-full of heavy riffs and meaty beatdowns. So don your best mosh-ready clothing and get in the pit, as Forty Winters have come to get you moving.

Bring it on!