There are few things more exciting than hearing an EP that makes you sit up and think, these lot could be something special. PRESIDENT’s King of Terrors did exactly that for me. It was magnificent. So I went into Blood of Your Empire hoping they’d take that sound and push it further.
And here’s the difficult bit: this is a good album. A very good album in places. But by the end, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I wanted more.
They know exactly what they’re doing
PRESIDENT have a recognisable formula: electronic introductions and samples, low-tuned guitars, huge choruses, clean vocals that give way to filthy distortion, and breakdowns designed to get people moving. The playing is technically excellent, and the electronics aren’t just thrown over the top. They set songs up, accent the arrangements and belong in the music.
On Angel Wings, PRESIDENT’s vocal range immediately stands out. There’s something of Fightstar in the movement between the softer delivery and the aggression. Dark Heaven opens with an absolutely filthy guitar sound, drops into an almost hip-hop-flavoured verse, then lands a chorus and a breakdown that made me stop what I was doing. There’s a little of Enter Shikari in the way electronics are woven into the songwriting, and I can hear shades of Deftones in the atmosphere and the contrast between beauty and weight. That doesn’t mean they sound exactly like either band.
But as Pink Noise came around, I found myself recognising the same shape again: electronics, clean verse, distorted chorus, guitars and hooks. It works. It’s just familiar.
Pop songwriting in metal clothing
Something kept nagging at me during this listen: is this music actually pop-adjacent? Not in its sound, obviously. There’s more than enough guitar here to rearrange your fillings. I mean in the architecture of the songs. Intro, verse, big chorus, another verse, another chorus, bridge or breakdown, final chorus, out. They know how to find a hook and how to get back to it.
For all the modern-metal aggression, there’s a pop songwriter’s discipline underneath PRESIDENT.
That’s not an insult. Far from it. Nor is having a recognisable sound necessarily a problem. Korn have been working with a distinctive musical vocabulary for decades. If you’re good at something, why not keep doing it? There’s a difference between being consistent and running out of ideas.
The question for me is whether PRESIDENT are doing enough with that vocabulary to keep surprising me.
When it hits, it really hits
Sleepwalker makes particularly good use of samples and electronics, with the drums driving things forward. I didn’t pick the bass out as clearly as I do on some records, although the low guitar tunings may be taking up some of that space.
Then there’s Dionysus. Oof. That one made me gurn. It still follows the formula, but the riff is HUGE and the breakdown is absolutely enormous. That’s a pit-filler if ever I heard one. It doesn’t reinvent PRESIDENT; it shows how devastating they can be when everything lands.
And credit where it’s due: the pacing is good. These tracks move quickly without moving so quickly that you miss them. They get in, establish what they’re doing, hit hard and get out. After Dionysus, the melancholy piano opening of This Will Divide Us is a welcome change of texture. It gives the album some space to breathe rather than trying to out-heavy itself.
Hate Figure then comes along and packs a remarkable amount into just under three minutes. Its introduction sounded instantly familiar, although I couldn’t quite place the influence. To my ears it leans more towards nu-metal than metalcore, and Ando San’s guest vocals provide a welcome change. It hits hard and doesn’t waste a second.
Waiting for the payoff
After the melancholy of This Will Divide Us and the punch of Hate Figure, I was hoping the closing track would kick the doors off.
Instead, White Devil opens like an upbeat pop song. Around two minutes in, the driven guitar arrives and I think, here we go. Then we’re back to pop piano. Then the guitar returns. There’s something of Sleep Token in the shifting dynamics, the push and pull between restraint and heaviness. Sadly, for me, it doesn’t deliver the payoff that all that anticipation seems to promise.
It isn’t that a metal album must end with the heaviest song. It doesn’t. But this ending brought my main frustration into focus: PRESIDENT repeatedly show how many textures they can combine, yet I kept waiting for the record to do something with them that I hadn’t already heard from the EP.
The verdict
Halfway through, I caught myself thinking, The EP was magnificent. This isn’t giving me more, but it’s delivering. By the finish, I wasn’t quite so convinced by that last part.
Blood of Your Empire is polished, well paced, full of strong hooks and played by musicians who clearly know their craft. Dionysus and Hate Figure are particularly strong. I enjoyed listening to it, and there are songs I’ll happily return to.
But King of Terrors made me think PRESIDENT were going to take me somewhere new. This album mostly confirms that they’re very good at where they already are.
Good album. Strong identity. Not quite the leap forward I was hoping for.
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