Midnight Society - The Long Road To Ruin

Midnight Society

The Long Road To Ruin
self-released; 2016

​3.5 out of 5

By Dom Eagle

Midnight Society is the one-man project which packs a punch. He’s located in New Hampshire, just north of Boston, but he’s no stranger to performing music live. He plays guitar for a metalcore band called Dive Team but he’s always had a penchant for writing softer, more introspective songs. He has a light and a dark side, and now he wishes to channel elements of both through his solo work. After deciding to go for it and record some of his ideas, he ended up with The Long Road To Ruin a five-track EP packing some serious punch.

​The EP opens with the electrifying “Lost Sons.” This is one of the better indie post-hardcore records I’ve heard in a very long time. This guy, in my opinion, is definitely up there with mainstream full-band acts, such as Bring Me The Horizon and We Are The Ocean. That’s no bad thing.

Midnight Society has a professional, polished sound, while still packing the raw energy which categories the alt/punk/hardcore genres. On the opening track, the vocals are melodic, beautiful, yet brutal. Screeching singing and tearing screams propel the song onwards, but the distorted, relentless electric guitar and throbbing drum beat create a punchy, captivating atmosphere.

“Shade” is packaged in the darkest, most distorted wrapping. The rapid fluctuation and transition between singing and screaming is smooth and virtually unnoticeable. The blend between punchy, raw, disturbed, twisted, metallic rock and harmonies is part of what makes this band so addictive to me. The closing breakdown, packed full of torn, angst-fueled screeching and dissonant electric guitar, droning off into infinity, blew me away.

“Dreamt About A Fire” opens with a slowly-strummed, catchy electric chord progression. This rapidly ascends into distorted madness, a drum-filler-driven beat and the same frantic vocals which have come to characterize this solo project. It’s a softer effort than the previous tracks, but the thing about Midnight Society is that it’s a project unafraid to dart from genre to genre, constantly evolving and changing as this short EP progresses.

All in all, it’s very rare that an indie record gets my body moving or genuinely intrigues me. There are so many bands creating so much similar music that it’s hard to find something which doesn’t blend in amongst all the rest, but the solo project that is Midnight Society is better than the majority of full-band projects out there. If this is what he can with five tracks, I’d love to see what he could do in a full-length album.

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