Album review by Maxine Thomas
House Of Cards marks a pivotal moment for Gympie-born metal-core outfit The Amity Affliction, arriving in the wake of a significant lineup change that raises questions about the band’s creative direction. Following 2023’s Not Without My Ghosts, anticipation has centred less on whether the band could deliver and more on how their sound might evolve under altered circumstances. What emerges is an album built with the live setting in mind; balancing immersive intros and interludes with direct, mosh-ready peaks, positioning House Of Cards as a calculated, if not entirely risk-free, addition to their catalogue.
Having listened to The Amity Affliction on and off since 2020’s Everyone Loves You… Once You Leave Them, I approached House Of Cards with a deliberately open mind. While I’ve always connected with standout tracks like ‘Pittsburgh’ and ‘Soak Me In Bleach’, their records haven’t consistently held my attention front-to-back. House of Cards, however, marks a turning point, emerging as the first release in their discography that feels cohesive and engaging across its full runtime.
Opening track ‘Vida Nueva’ establishes the album’s tone almost immediately, pulling you in within seconds. It functions as the foundation of the record’s immersive, live-oriented feel, its slow build evoking the image of a darkened, curtained stage, tension rising as lights flicker in sequence. As the track progresses, the prelude sets up the transition into ‘Kickboxer’ with precision. In that sense, ‘Vida Nueva’ acts as a countdown, signalling the start of The Amity Affliction’s next chapter with a controlled and atmospheric lead-in to a curtain dropping-worthy moment.
‘Kickboxer’ picks up directly from ‘Vida Nueva’, acting as the album’s first full release of tension and a decisive shift into the heavier end of The Amity Affliction’s sound. Built around sustained, guttural, scream-driven vocals, the track leans heavily on Joel Birch’s delivery to reassert the band’s intensity. I found it functions less as a standalone highlight and more as a purposeful jolt of energy, designed to ignite a crowd and set the pace early. Paired with ‘Vida Nueva’ it forms a cohesive opening sequence that translates seamlessly to a live setting, feeling tailor-made for the start of a set as much as the beginning of the record.
Enter title track ‘House Of Cards’, the first substantial showcase of new bassist and vocalist Jonny Reeves within The Amity Affliction’s evolving lineup. Rather than feeling like a disruption, Reeves’ clean vocals integrate seamlessly alongside Birch’s harsher delivery, adding a sense of balance without diluting the band’s intensity. Musically, the track leans into a riff-driven structure with a strong emotional undercurrent, reinforcing its role as both a standout moment and a statement of intent. A letter to loved ones in a broken home, the title track explores themes of trying to love yourself in a place of instability. ‘House Of Cards’ is an anthem to those who want to scream out the pain inside whilst also paying recognition to an aligned struggle with others.
‘Heaven Sent’ stands as the longest track on the album, anchored by repetitive, mantra-like choruses and instrumentals that echo the heavy, groove-driven intensity reminiscent of Wage War. Lyrically, it leans unflinchingly into trauma-infused themes, unfolding like a torn-out page from a diary never meant to be read. Birch confronts deeply rooted childhood trauma with stark, visceral imagery, burning cigarettes pressed into skin and enduring both physical and verbal abuse in a self-sacrificial attempt to shield loved ones. In keeping with the album’s recurring focus on emotional release, House Of Cards continues to expand this world of a fractured home, where escape feels increasingly out of reach and survival comes at a cost.
‘Bleed’ shifts its focus to the self-destructive patterns that can emerge when trying to manage intense internal turmoil. Produced by lead guitarist Dan Brown, the track is shaped with a deliberate sense of mechanical repetition, underscoring the almost automatic nature of self-soothing behaviours. A distorted, AI-like vocal line repeating “I bleed the way I bleed” reinforces a fatalistic resignation, less a statement and more an acceptance of coping as inevitability. While the production detail may seem subtle, it deepens the track’s thematic weight significantly.
Lyrically, the song confronts the exhaustion of trying to heal through therapy, medication, and journaling—“I thought that every word I spoke, every pill I took, all the shit I wrote would fix my fucking mind and yet the war rages on”—only to find that progress isn’t linear or guaranteed. In that frustration, the pull toward older, destructive coping mechanisms resurfaces: “cut myself again.” Despite its harrowing subject matter, ‘Bleed’ is still engineered as a high-energy, cathartic piece built for live settings, with its explosive instrumentation inviting movement and release. That contrast between sonic intensity and lyrical despair is what keeps the track grounded in House of Cards broader tension, where pain is both confronted and momentarily transformed into something survivable on the surface.
At the album’s midpoint, ‘Break These Chains’ marks a turning point, shifting from reflection to resolve. The track centres on breaking cycles of trauma while resisting the pull of anger and resentment. Reeves opens with a strong, clarifying chorus, while Joel Birch’s repeated “I’ll break these chains” feels like a personal vow to change. The verses highlight how submission to antagonists enables toxic cycles, before Birch briefly shifts to empathy, recognising learned behaviour behind the abuse. That perspective fractures in the bridge, where anger resurfaces, underscoring the tension between understanding and pain. Ultimately, the song balances hurt with quiet hope, ending in the acceptance that change won’t come overnight and sometimes walking away is the only way forward.
‘Beso De La Muerta’ is yet another dramatic instrumental, providing a build up of suspense listeners can imagine happening during an encore at an Amity show. Birch can be heard in the distant background screaming what sounds like “no peace, just pain” which matches quite well with the song title meaning ‘kiss of death.’ The interlude transitions cleanly into a chimey guitar vamp by Brown for ‘Swan Dive’.
‘Swan Dive’ explores the imbalance of one-sided love, where emotional needs aren’t met, not even halfway. It captures the experience of falling for an idealised version of someone, only to watch that image unravel as their true self surfaces beneath the mask. The chorus, driven by its chanting repetition; specifically with ‘I found’ and ‘a well,’ is built for live settings, inviting crowd participation and creating a shared, almost communal release that strengthens the connection between the band and their audience.
Track 9, ‘Speaking In Tongues’ opens with a mysterious, almost hypnotic atmosphere before snapping into Birch’s guttural screams, maintaining the album’s relentless intensity. By this point, House of Cards shifts its focus away from childhood and parental trauma toward the complexities of forming healthy relationships in adulthood. Birch approaches the track from an internal perspective, capturing the fractured thoughts of a trauma survivor who feels fundamentally unworthy of love, as if it’s something reserved for people who fit a certain mould. There’s a sense of being trapped in a cycle of grief, where attempts to communicate fall flat, misunderstood by those who haven’t lived through the same experiences. Each failed relationship reinforces that isolation, creating the feeling that love is cursed and that being broken is inevitable. Lines like “I’ll never weep for you” channel that mix of anger, betrayal and emotional exhaustion, culminating in a raw, cathartic outcry that defines the track’s weight.
‘Afterlife’ takes a different path, leaning into the more spiritual side of coping with trauma. It approaches these themes through a lens of detachment and denial, underpinned by a quiet fear of dying alone. Sonically, the track is built on a polished, atmospheric metalcore soundscape that prioritises contrast and space. Ambient, restrained guitar textures open the song with a distant, almost weightless quality, layered in clean tones and washed in reverb. As the track unfolds, the instrumentation settles into a controlled mid-tempo groove, with tight, palm-muted riffs that feel grounded rather than chaotic. Joel Birch’s vocals cut through with a raw, serrated edge, carrying a sharp emotional intensity. In contrast, Jonny Reeves delivers smooth, melodic lines, supported by subtle harmonies that give his voice an almost ethereal quality. The push and pull between their styles forms the song’s core dynamic, elevating its sense of emotional conflict and deepening the overarching theme of inner detachment.
‘Reap What You Sow’ pushes The Amity Affliction into an EDM-infused metalcore direction, blending electronic textures with heavy instrumentation in a way that echoes the stylistic experimentation seen in bands like Windwaker and Headwreck. Within the album, it stands out as a tonal shift, creating a sense of detachment that mirrors dissociation. Lyrically, Birch and Reeves explore fractured realities, regret and the weight of failing to become who you hoped to be, alongside the struggle for inner peace without isolation. Sonically, it’s darker and more confrontational than ‘Afterlife’, driven by low-tuned, chug-heavy guitars and crisp, forceful drums. Birch’s drier, more accusatory screams cut sharply through the mix, while Reeves’ clean vocals remain grounded and direct, balancing melody with tension.
‘Eternal War’ closes the album by stepping away from the EDM-influenced elements and returning to a more dramatic, guitar-driven sound. While it effectively ties together the second half’s themes, it feels less cohesive sonically, with multiple ideas competing rather than fully resolving into one direction. Lyrically, Joel Birch explores self-sabotage, familiarity with pain, loneliness, spirituality and regret, pulling together the album’s recurring emotional threads. The track’s shifting guitar rhythms and variations in Birch’s screams; especially the higher, more piercing tones, add to its sense of instability. The fade-out then leaves the song unresolved, creating a blackout-like ending that reflects emotional overload rather than closure.
Overall, House of Cards stands out within The Amity Affliction’s discography as a record defined by transition and uncertainty. With the change in clean vocalists, expectations around the album were left unclear, yet the band ultimately delivers a project that still carries their core identity through its evolution. The first half focuses on darker themes of childhood trauma, fractured family life, and unhealthy coping mechanisms formed in response to a broken home. The ‘Beso De La Muerte’ interlude acts as a divider, breaking the record into two distinct emotional sections and reinforcing the sense of narrative shift. From tracks 1–6, the album feels more structured and story-driven, while tracks 7–12 become increasingly chaotic and experimental. The second half moves between heavier metalcore elements and EDM-influenced textures, creating a volatile, unpredictable progression. In that sense, the stylistic inconsistency begins to make thematic sense—mirroring the instability and emotional turbulence of adulthood when carrying unresolved childhood trauma. Rather than feeling disjointed, the shifting soundscape reflects that internal disorder, making the album’s “messiness” part of its message when experienced front to back.
As an overall rating, I’d personally give it an 8/10. I found myself unexpectedly connecting with a lot of the songs, and I can comfortably listen through the album as a whole and feel fully immersed in it. That immersion does start to shift in the final stretch, where the tone changes quite noticeably, and ‘Eternal War’ in particular throws me off a bit with some of the sonic choices. That said, none of this makes it a bad album at all. It’s still a record I could easily have on repeat for a few days, and it absolutely works as a hype build-up before going into a live show for The Amity Affliction.
House Of Cards by The Amity Affliction is out now streaming everywhere.
