Everywhere, Everything (Arising Empire) is the fifth album from Polar, the Hardcore natives of Guildford, Surrey (UK), and is the follow-up to 2019’s Nova. It is a collection of songs written together during the pandemic, and with their current lineup for the first time, which had brought a premature end to their tour with After The Burial, Spiritbox, and Make Them Suffer.

The record opens with a moment of calm as the intro to ‘Winds Of Change’ begins with a distant shimmer of bass and lush clean singing over a soothing lead, before inevitably kicking in with an eruption of metalcore. In contrast ‘Burn’ opens with blast-beats and the ferocious vocals of Adam Woodford, which eventually melt into the uplifting vocal melody of the chorus. 

‘Gods And Heathens’ provides a huge big room  and the comparison to Architects is an obvious one, none more so than on the title track with Woodford laying down a Sam Carter-esq vocal performance, on a song which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the Architects’ most recent albums. 

A stand out moment comes with ‘The Greatest Sin’ featuring a sublime pulsating and chugging riff on the verse which will get the crowd bouncing, before an inspiring chorus gives way to a lovely dark guitar lead prior to that riff dropping again. A beautifully arranged song which showcases the best of everything Polar deliver on the record. 

The second half of the album has its aggressive moments with the hardcore-esque ‘Dissolve Me’ and on ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Snakes Of Eden’, while also showing their more melodic side with the crossover appeal of ‘Rush’ and closer ‘Baptism Of Fire’, another very ‘modern Architects’ sounding cut with deep thought proving lyrics which include the line “My head is no easy place to hide within”. 

A solid start to 2023 for the UK’s metal scene. 

Buy the album here:

https://arisingempire.com/dissolveme

7 / 10

ABSTRAKT_SOUL