Monsters - The Righteous Dead

I feel like it’s been a minute since we’ve had a deathcore one, so why not dust off the cobwebs with one of THE definitive deathcore albums? That’s right! WV038 is Monsters - The Righteous Dead!

For all the deathcore historians out there, this needs no introduction. It’s some of the most bouncy wary deathcore you’ll come across. Monsters existed in that post-Jerome, pre-Oceano space and really fleshed out and set a lot of the deathcore mainstays that we see in a lot of modern deathcore and deathcore we see today. It definitely skews on the more “core” side of deathcore, and is a fun counterpoint to a lot of the melodic and “death metal” focused deathcore from around the same period.

Righteous Dead hit a lot of check boxes for me with WV. It’s a rare, OOP CD and band that never had vinyl. They’re one of those bands that toiled in “obscurity” and never really broke out, even though they’re so star-studded. This is peak “real ones know” material, haha.

They later got picked up by False Prophet and put out a killer self titled album. But Righteous Dead will always be 0-0-0-0-0 breakdown goodness. Just menacing vocals, chugs, and just that Illinois energy. What were they putting in the water in 2008-2010 out there?

It’s a full LP of grooves, chugs and bass drops. If this doesn’t getting you in a mood about the golden era of deathcore, I’m not sure what will! I know you’re going to have fun in this one!

Art was once again handled by Ben Hoagland. The original doesn’t have a ton of identifying elements other than color scheme - I think he did a killer job of keeping that energy and modernizing it a bit!

Audio by Third Eye Studios. These tracks are sounding incredible, and wouldn’t it be wild if there was a bunch of hidden bonus tracks too? Weird!

This is probably as “deathcore” as I’ll ever go - I hope you enjoy it! I know this album was influential to a lot of you (and me too) and it’s just so fun to revisit this kind of core a decade later. It’s just good old fashioned fun!