Still Stayer is keeping metalcore fresh with emotional and moving tracks

I have been jamming the new Still Stayer EP, ALL HEART, non-fucking-stop since it dropped on November 24th last year. I’m not even kidding, I don’t think a single day has passed since it came out that I haven’t listened to at least one song off of it. It has everything I want out of metalcore but never get: Beautiful guitar melodies, soul-crushing lyrics that bring a tear to your eye, and then some heavy parts to bring you back up. Their style is similar to that of a lot of other bands I’ve been vibing with lately, namely, Eonia, Petroglyphs, and Aerial, the band I most recently wrote about.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a crazy person because I care so deeply about certain bands and music, or because I talk so passionately about it. Still Stayer is one of these bands, and I’ve really liked them ever since they put out a song called ‘Focus,’ back in 2021. At the time, I really just enjoyed their music in general, and I wasn’t going through my current two-year-long phase of listening mainly to what I call Melodic, Emotional hardcore (my playlist is actually just called ‘melodic shit’). Another thing that caught my attention was how they used the sample of Alan Watts at the end of Focus, and later throughout the EVEREND EP. At the time I had a running joke with some friends that it was a new cliché to use Alan Watts samples in metalcore or prog metal songs… but I still loved it, and his samples really do add a sort of “profound-ness.”

Still Stayer’s first couple singles and EP are great, and I still listen to them. However, they absolutely changed the game when they released the new EP, ALL HEART. Interestingly enough, the single for the EP was called ‘TUNNEL VISION,’ and while I did like the melodies, it felt like there was something missing. I honestly wasn’t sure what was going to come of the rest of the release. As soon as I listened to the rest of the songs, though, it became clear that TUNNEL VISION was just the somber ending to a beautiful masterpiece.

I was actually on a train in Japan the day that the rest of ALL HEART dropped, and I remember looking at my Release Radar and seeing ‘XYLA,’ and then queueing it up and being very impressed. It was only the next day that I realized it wasn’t the only song to come out, and I immediately listened to the whole thing front to back, and then sent it to my brother with the words: “This is hands down the best release of the year.” I meant it then, I mean it now.

Let me start by saying that the production is immaculate. I literally do not think I’ve ever heard better music production for a metal band that compliments everything so perfectly. I even used to hate when people would complain about production when I showed them music, since I was into a lot of smaller, independent bands who usually had worse recording quality. I didn’t even really understand how much of a difference the production makes until a few years ago, when Corelia finally released their crowdfunded second album, and it was completely un-mixed and un-mastered (not to mention like 8 years late). Anyways, the production on ALL HEART is so good, I actually feel like I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle when I listen to it without good headphones or in a car without a decent stereo.

The opener to the EP, ‘MONOCHROME,’ is a phenomenal intro, starting with a sweet ambient riff and then developing an amazing groove. Although it’s not my actual favorite on the EP, I think it genuinely is the strongest song. It seems to address the topic of depression and monotony of daily life. There’s a dichotomy shown between feeling sorry for yourself, but on the other hand frustration that you can “give all you have,” yet still things fall apart. I feel like the titular line “Do you feel, monochrome?” refers to the feeling of not being able to find joy in things, like everything has been sucked out. Powerful stuff.

The lyrics throughout the EP are absolutely riveting, and I feel like they tend to stick with you after the fact. On first listen, I really picked up on this line from ‘HIRAETH’:

The Reaper came and took you from me, in the blink of an eye

Reading it typed out doesn’t really do it justice, because vocalist Luke Steffens delivers it with such emotional depth. I’ve always personally felt like screaming is a means to show emotional change or depth in music. I listened to a lot of metalcore and post-hardcore growing up that just used screaming as filler or as a gimmick. Lower Definition, and later, No Bragging Rights, were some of the first bands to show me how screaming can be used as a tool to convey emotion. This line from HIRAETH actually compelled me to go and find out what “Hiraeth” meant, and I found this:

“Hiraeth is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation. The University of Wales, Lampeter, likens it to a homesickness tinged with grief and sadness over the lost or departed”

That was exactly the feeling I felt from that song, and I didn’t even know what to call it because there is no English word for it. I think true masters of art can actually invoke feelings in those that view or listen to it. This is pretty commonplace for someone going to a museum where you might see powerful depictions of hardship or emotions, but for a metal band, this is really special and unique.

The guitarist of Still Stayer, Christopher Davis, is a true master of the craft, and writes some of the most invigorating riffs I’ve heard lately. Over the past two years, I’ve become acquainted with some of the members of Sacramento prog metalcore band Petroglyphs, who I mentioned as a related artist at the beginning of my post. I listened to Petroglyphs way before finding Still Stayer, and it was really cool to find out from them that Christopher used to be a member of Petroglyphs before he moved out of town. I wasn’t surprised, considering Petroglyphs music hits me in a way that’s very similar to how I feel about Still Stayer.

The other members of Still Stayer, Marcus Czaplewski (drums) and Travis Vrba (bass), are both Milwaukee natives, along with the previously mentioned Luke Steffens. I don’t know a lot about their past bands and projects, but I like to imagine they welcomed Christopher into the Milwaukee scene and knew they would make something really killer out of Still Stayer. They’ve recently gained a lot of traction in the local scene and were voted best Milwaukee metal band the past two years by Shepherd Express, a local news magazine based in the area. It makes me truly happy to see such a sick band getting noticed in the scene, as I personally feel like the bands I love tend to fall apart or fade into obscurity way too soon.

The band often marks their posts on Facebook with the tagline: “All Heart, No Brakes.” The first half of this is obviously the name of their recent EP, and it’s left me speculating whether there’s a second part to this EP that we’ll get to see soon (I wonder what it’ll be named?). I would be super stoked to get some more material from these guys, but I can wait patiently because ALL HEART will last me awhile.

My favorite song from the EP was hands down XYLA. I think it could have been because it was the first I heard after the full thing released, but I’ll attribute it to the beautiful background riff that persists through it, along with the lyrics. The other reason this one maybe stuck with me was because there was a live video of Still Stayer playing all of these songs that I came across shortly after they were released, and the middle section of XYLA felt incredibly important to the performance. These lines hit so hard:

We disappear,
Underneath the influence.
It’s tough to heal,
When we haven’t seen the sun in weeks.
Disappear.

I think even if we aren’t affected by it ourselves, we all have a close friend or family member who has gone through tough times and has so-called, “disappeared underneath the influence.” It’s easy to empathize with mental health issues and substance abuse these days, and I think that’s why this section and these lyrics resonate with me deeply. I linked the live video below if you want to see a really wonderful performance.

Anyway, I’m super grateful we have bands like Still Stayer making impactful music like this, and I hope their popularity brings them some success and maybe some tours their way (if that’s what they want). I would absolutely love to see them play a show with Petroglyphs out in Sacramento. Check out their Facebook page here to find links to their merch, music, and some great videos they’ve been posting lately.

This is technically my first “album review” that I’ve done on here since most of the time I just write about new stuff that has yet to come out or new singles by themselves. So for my first album review, I’m giving ALL HEART a 10/10. It’s a tough bar for album reviews of the future to live up to, but I can’t give this EP anything less. Leave a comment with your thoughts on ALL HEART and the boys in Still Stayer!