Eternal Blue by Spiritbox

Eternal Blue, the debut album from Victoria, British Columbia's Spiritbox, arrived on September 17, 2021, through the band's own Pale Chord label in partnership with Rise Records, and it was a long time coming. Singer Courtney LaPlante and guitarist Mike Stringer, a married couple who had walked away from Iwrestledabearonce, started on it in 2018, watched an April 2020 release get swallowed by the pandemic, then decamped to Joshua Tree, California, in early 2021 to finish the songs. Stringer produced it with former Volumes guitarist Daniel Braunstein.

The wait paid off. This is metalcore and progressive metal bent into something stranger: djent chug, electronic shimmer, and LaPlante swinging between throat-shredding screams and clean, soaring melody, with Slipknot and Deftones in its blood alongside Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears. "Circle with Me" was one of five singles, every one of which reached the Billboard charts, and the critics lined up to cheer.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.