New Medicines — Dead Poetic

Dead Poetic's New Medicines came out on Solid State and Tooth & Nail on 6 April 2004, and it reached the UK that June through Golf and Plastic Head. Aaron Sprinkle produced and engineered it at Compound in Seattle, from late September to early November 2003. J.R. McNeely mixed it and Troy Glessner mastered it. It runs about forty-eight minutes across eleven listed tracks, and the closer stretches out into a hidden track. It was their second studio album, after Four Wall Blackmail. It's mid-2000s Christian post-hardcore, emo and alternative rock, and it gets an 8/10 from me.

Who they were in 2004

They were a band from Dayton, Ohio, on Solid State, playing the same heavy-music rooms as Beloved, Underoath, Haste the Day and Norma Jean. They were openly Christian, like plenty of Tooth & Nail bands back then. Brandon Rike wrote cryptic, violent metaphors that didn't need a church-camp sticker on the cover.

What the critics keep saying about this album

Josh Taylor at Jesus Freak Hideout reviewed it in April 2004 and called it a fantastic record for Solid State fans and for rock and emo listeners alike. He heard blazing guitars and hardcore screams, with Rike singing a big share of melody that made them sound like a more emo-influenced Blindside. He pointed to the violent metaphors in songs like "Vanus Empty" and "Molotov." He said it was one of his favourite albums of the year so far, the kind of discovery you don't forget.

Vik Bansal at musicOMH reviewed it in the UK in June 2004. He noted how crowded the melodic hardcore field was, then said Dead Poetic simply wrote cracking songs. He couldn't find a weak track. He loved the drums jumping out on "Taste the Red Hands," the meaty guitars, and vocals that go from guttural to impressively sung, with bold choruses all the way through. He heard metal weight in the title track and "Hostages," and called "Glass in the Trees" a slow song that isn't wimpy at all. It builds to an aggressive finale and grieves a friend lost in a car accident. He gave it 4.5 out of 5 and called it a contender for rock album of the year if you're into heavy music.

Tony Cummings at Cross Rhythms heard a step up from a formulaic debut, with a more commercial sound grafted onto the hardcore. He said the sung choruses sometimes clash with the growling but more often they work. He heard P.O.D.-level power on "Vanus Empty," a song about the cruelty of suicide, and quoted HM magazine saying the band had "staked their claim as a rock'n'roll force to be reckoned with." Commenters under the review corrected a few of his slips, including where the band was from and the names Rike and Shellabarger, but the praise for the album stood.

Sarah Linn at Sound the Sirens wrote about it at the time, after the Solid State tour. She heard fierce, cutting production from Sprinkle, a less raw sound than on 4-Wall, and song shapes that were close to formulaic. She thought fans of the debut might miss the screaming, but said the style and strength made up for it, and she picked "Glass in the Trees" as the piercing highlight.

Jesus Freak Hideout later put New Medicines at No. 29 on its Top 100 Tooth & Nail Albums list. Michael Weaver said "Taste the Red Hands," "Molotov," "Glass in the Trees" and "Modern Morbid Prophecies" still make a stellar core that holds up beyond nostalgia.

Wikipedia's credits list Rike on vocals, Zach Miles on lead guitar, Chad Shellabarger on bass, Jesse Sprinkle on drums and Todd Osborn on rhythm guitar. Aaron Sprinkle played keys on "Dimmer Light," and Phil Peterson played cello on the same song. The title track also landed on the soundtrack of the WWE WrestleMania 21 video game, which was a nice brush with the mainstream.

Four tracks from this LP

New Medicines is the title single, and its official video leads off the videos. musicOMH loved its stonking riffs, and it's the song that ended up on the WrestleMania 21 soundtrack.

Taste the Red Hands is the opener Bansal heard jumping out of the speakers, and it tops Weaver's list of the album's best.

Glass in the Trees is what Bansal called a gut-wrenching slow song and Linn heard as piercing sorrow. It's the emotional centre of the album, and it never goes soft.

Molotov is the song Taylor pointed to for its lyrics against the machine, and Weaver named it among the best. It's the push in the middle that keeps the album from coasting.

When you've worn those out, move on to "The Dream Club Murders," "Vanus Empty," "Dimmer Light," "Hostages," "Modern Morbid Prophecies" and "A Hoax to Live For." Linn's point about the formula and Cummings' note about the singing clashing with the growls are fair. So are that 4.5 and the top 100 ranking.

What the room sounded like in 2004

Sprinkle's polished production at Compound in Seattle put Dayton post-hardcore on those same Solid State tours without smoothing Rike's rasp into Christian pop. The CDs sat in Christian bookstores and in the racks at mall chain stores, and as Cummings noted, the UK release on Golf came after the Beloved tour got people interested. This isn't a chart story. It's about the songwriting, and a title-track video that's still worth watching.

The score

Here's why it stops short of a nine. Linn pointed out the formulaic song shapes and the missing screams for fans of 4-Wall, and Cummings heard the singing and growling clash on some songs. But there's too much in its favour for a seven. musicOMH's 4.5 and "not a weak track," Taylor calling it a favourite of the year, HM calling them a force to be reckoned with, and JFH later ranking it in its Tooth & Nail top 100 are hard to brush aside. It's a Solid State breakthrough that sharpens the band's sound, and the title-track video still lands.

Where this album sits on Loud Faith

Christian post-hardcore on Solid State and Tooth & Nail in 2004 had real weight behind it. It meant touring with Underoath and Norma Jean, cryptic lyrics about faith, and kids who wanted screaming and melody on the same CD. New Medicines is Dead Poetic's second album. It's tighter than the debut and easy to put on a playlist, and it doesn't pretend the hardcore days never happened.