Album Review: Hollow Front - 'The Price of Dreaming'

Grand Rapids' up-and-coming metalcore band Hollow Front leaves an impressive mark within the month of May and releases melodic and searing new album The Price of Dreaming via UNFD.

Wanting to break the barriers within the metalcore genre is never an easy task, but Michigan metalcore band Hollow Front makes this look like a walk in the park. The Grand Rapid metalcore geniuses are back again and better than ever with their latest release, The Price of Dreaming, and they have never sounded more exceptional.

“Two Worlds Away" takes a break from all the aggressive nature of most of the songs we have experienced and instead takes a welcomed impassioned and denuded turn on the record. While it hits differently instrumentally, it does not lose the emotional residual impact the band has successfully attained throughout. ”

Emotional intensity and afternotes of venom breathe through the listening experience of this record, floating through spaces of melodic cadence with a bold instrumental presence.

Beginning with "In the Spotlight," the instrumental harmonies are gorgeous and shine on this track. A glowing centerpiece that opens up the gates for what's to come for the rest of the record, it's a short but beautiful way to move things forward.

The standout moments continue from there as "Comatose" advances the effortless, destructive, and melodic nature The Price of Dreaming drives forward with the first track. Other gems on the record are synth beauties "Self-Sabotage." A unique listening experience up to this point on the album, Hollow Front shows outstandingly mature use of instrumental experimentation with punch-heavy guitar patterns and diverse use of clean and unclean vocal control.

It's rare to say when you can listen to a record from start to finish and rarely find fault with many of the songs on the album, and the same is true with this record. Heavy-hitting "Thick As Blood" is just as emotionally resonating and heavy as the rest of the songs up to this point, driving us to another well-formed track, "The Price of Dreaming," proudly named after the album. A major highlight on this journey does not even begin to express what this is instrumentally or lyrically as this is one of the best dynamic displays of musicianship on the album.

Other excellent poignant tracks on The Price of Dreaming are "Dear Sons" and "Treading Water." Showing that the band knows how to track a record, the first and second half of this record is not compromised in terms of quality or raw emotional impact.

"Two Worlds Away" takes a break from all the aggressive nature of most of the songs we have experienced and instead takes a welcomed impassioned and denuded turn on the record. While it hits differently instrumentally, it does not lose the emotional residual impact the band has successfully attained throughout.

We finally end with some of the most massively energetic experiences on the album "Heritage" and "Running Away." Again impressively proving that Hollow Front is excellent at all things metalcore, whether it comes to a melodic presence or colossal heavy-hitting approach, you will get the best of both worlds, and be deeply satisfied with both.

The Price of Dreaming is an intrepid and brilliant step in the right direction this year for the Michigan metalcore band. An album that battles against depression while living in the hopeless, nightmarish world situation of the pandemic, Hollow Front spares no expense at exposing that vulnerability while uniquely embracing their abrasive nature. If this is just a taste of what's to come in the next few years for Hollow Front, the metalcore genre is going to be a happy place.