Afterlife - Part Of Me [Yellow & Red Splatter]

Part of Me is Afterlife's sophomore album, pressed on yellow and red splatter vinyl, and it's the sound of a metalcore band who grew up on nu metal and refuse to be sheepish about it.

The Florida four-piece arrived at a moment when the 2000s were being rehabilitated in real time, and Part of Me, released in 2021 through Hopeless, leans all the way into that. Nu metal bounce, rap cadences, hooks big enough for a festival stage, all bolted onto modern metalcore's weight. Sophomore records are usually where a band either hardens its identity or drifts, and Afterlife picked the former, doubling down on the exact things critics tend to call unfashionable right up until they're not.

Wasting Time opens with the kind of low tuned riff that lands square in your chest, while Misfit Anthem is exactly what its title advertises, a chorus built for a room full of people who never fit anywhere either. The title track dials the aggression back for something more wounded and vulnerable, and Chasing the High closes things out riding the album's most restless groove.

Ten tracks, no filler, splatter vinyl that matches the energy. Sometimes a record just wants you to move and yell along, and there's nothing wrong with that.