It seemed as if it was the end for the Guildford-based Metalcore stalwarts Polar after having lost a lot of members of the original band in 2023. 

Not content with letting the band be put to rest, Adam Woodford decided to bring on a whole new team and carry on the passion project. 

Five Arrows (Arising Empire) is the reward from all the hardship the band has gone through to get here. With a majority of a new band, how will this fare for Woodford and the band and affect Polar’s legacy?

There was no way a Polar album was not starting on a bang. A riff reminiscent of Refused meets While She Sleeps introduces the album, before Woodford barks down the microphone, unleashing the rest of the band on the track. 

It’s explosive, truly showing the height of the potential for the band. Instrumentally, the band isn’t wholly heavy, with a more electronic side of the music supporting the band, but it is with Woodford’s aforementioned furious, barking vocals that truly give the music that vicious grit that would make anyone start a pit at a funeral. 

“We Won’t Sleep” has all the benchmarks of a true Metalcore rager: killer riffs, vocals and a breakdown that’ll make the next tour a brutal place to be. While the electronic song is starting to introduce some experimentation down the road, the song isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel by any mark, rather setting a good platform for the rest of Five Arrows to dive off from.

For the first half of the album, the band doesn’t tend to stray too far from this benchmark set with “We Won’t Sleep,” a solid mix of modern Metalcore meets Hardcore songs, ready to demolish the live circuit. 

Once the band reached the eighth track, “Swimming With Sharks,” the band get tired of playing with the same old conventions and go with a whole new path. Using a sound excerpt of a horn playing mesmerizingly, slowly building up until it hits the critical moment, and then “Boom!” the band go head-first into face-melter. 

The sound created conjures more of a Bloodywood meets Metalcore and it works extremely well. The band brings this back into the song during the chorus, interpolating with the lead guitar, making an extremely interesting sound and vibe. The sound is massive.

Polar kick it out of the park with the final two tracks, using “Need Want” and “Closing Curtain” as a two-punch knockout finale. 

Utilising the quiet to make the heavier moments hit that much harder, the band go into some spoken-word sections that are interwoven into the blazing verses effectively. Towards the end of the first track, female vocals join the frenzy once again, creating such a contrast between the different sounds that the heavier moments hit that much harder. It shouldn’t work, but the band make it so. 

To take a band like Polar at what may have been one of their weaker efforts in the previous album, mixed in with losing multiple bandmates, starting afresh with a mostly new team would be hard for anyone to pull off. To then accomplish this feat and pull out one of the best albums of their discography is a whole new matter. 

Polar are back, and it is clear they should be going places with this whole new drive and band behind them.

Buy the album here:
https://arisingempire.com/fivearrows

8 / 10
CHARLIE HILL
Follow Charlie’s work here: