Few bands have ever fused the chaos of deathcore with the precision of hardcore quite like Despised Icon. Nearly two decades into their reign, they’ve mastered the art of balancing surgical technique and savage brutality, and on Shadow Work, that mastery is both their greatest strength and their heaviest burden. The record opens not like a comeback, but a continuation — the sound of a band with nothing left to prove, yet everything left to express. It’s massive, focused, and confidently brutal — at least at first.
As Shadow Work unfolds, its own momentum becomes its shadow. What begins as a declaration of vitality gradually turns into a portrait of endurance. The title track, “Shadow Work,” plays like a thesis statement: dissonant, siren-like guitars, frantic blast beats, and the unmistakable dual-vocal onslaught that made the band iconic. One voice demonic, the other deranged — still one of metal’s most distinct contrasts — cutting through production that feels crisp and punishing. It’s classic Despised Icon: confident, tight, and violently precise. Age hasn’t softened them; it’s refined their weaponry.
That momentum carries into “Over My Dead Body,” where slower tempos and gut-level bass tones turn the aggression into a suffocating atmosphere. The pig squeals, breakdowns, and tempo shifts hit hard, but not unpredictably. You can almost hear the band grappling with their own formula — their technical execution flawless, their chaos now controlled. Even with the dissonant flares and layered production, the menace sometimes feels measured.
Tracks like “Death of an Artist” remind you why Despised Icon’s name still carries weight. It’s a clinic in precision — intricate riffs coiled tight around machine-gun drumming, every blast beat landing like a calculated strike. When the song dips into a brief moment of atmosphere before detonating again, it feels like reflection wrapped in destruction — a moment where endurance itself becomes the theme.
But as Shadow Work moves deeper, the ferocity begins to flatten. Songs like “Corpse Pose” and “The Apparition” still swing with force, but the impact dulls under repetition. The grooves remain monstrous, the tones colossal, yet the sense of danger — that edge of collapse that once made their music so electrifying — starts to fade. You feel the muscle, but not always the pulse.
There are flashes of evolution, though. “In Memoriam” opens with a haunting, symphonic undertone, weaving clean vocals through the band’s trademark density. It’s a rare moment of introspection — beauty framed by decay — and it suggests what Despised Icon could become if they ever allowed melody to challenge their aggression. Similarly, “ContreCoeur” injects hardcore bounce and punk immediacy, echoing vocalist Alex Erian’s Obey the Brave roots. It’s kinetic and refreshing — proof the band still knows how to move, not just crush.
Unfortunately, the back half of the record struggles to sustain that vitality. Tracks like “Reaper,” “Omen of Misfortune,” and “Obsessive Compulsive Disaster” deliver exactly what the titles promise — organized destruction, but without surprise. The breakdowns hit, the vocals growl with authority, the mix gleams — yet the urgency that defined their best work feels distant. The riffs grind more than slice; the drums thunder more than evolve.
By the time closer “Fallen Ones” rolls in — heavy, dissonant, ending with a haunting acoustic fade-out — it feels like the band taking inventory of everything they’ve built. It’s less a finale than a reflection: Despised Icon looking into the wreckage of the genre they helped define, asking what’s left to burn.
And yet, Shadow Work never feels hollow. It’s heavy, disciplined, and deeply sincere. The chemistry between members is palpable; their command of their craft remains unmatched. What’s missing isn’t power — it’s peril. The record trades that sense of near-collapse for control, and in doing so, loses a bit of the wild, unpredictable danger that once made them unstoppable.
If the early tracks remind us why Despised Icon mattered — the dual-vocal ferocity, the technical precision, the rhythmic complexity that defined deathcore’s modern DNA — the latter half feels like a band confronting the weight of their own endurance. Shadow Work doesn’t scream for relevance; it reflects on survival. It begins like a war cry and ends like an echo, a record as much about persistence as punishment.
The riffs still shred, the drums still thunder, the growls still gouge deep — but beneath the muscle lies a quieter truth: sometimes the heaviest thing a band can carry is its own legacy.
NOTABLE TRACKS:
Shadow Work
Death Of An Artist
ContreCoeur