Single Slam – Lost for Words by Betraying the Martyrs (The Resilient)

Betraying the Martyrs are a French deathcore/metalcore band founded in 2008. They made a huge name for themselves off the back of their first full album release, Breathe in Life. They won a fair few accolades for that album including coming second behind Megadeth’s Thirteen in French Guitar Mag for 2011’s album of the year and have been named in Gibson’s Top Ten Metal Bands to check out back in 2012. They have done okay for themselves since with another full album, Phantom, some big tours with bands like Whitechapel, Dark Funeral and Born of Osiris  and even a social media hit in a cover of Frozen’s Let It Go that my daughter absolutely loves.

Back to the serious music now though and the band have announced their next planned release, which will be called The Resilient, and will be released with Sumerian Records on the 27th of January. To get fans in the mood, the band have released the song Lost for Words from that album.

It just under 4 minutes long and starts to the almost symphonic sound of effects and keyboards. It is an eerie little start to a song that soon comes to life with a deep, bass filled riff and a stop start drum pattern. It’s a pretty cool intro actually and works well and it is nice to hear the effects take a back seat to the guitars and drums as the song progresses. Aaron Matts, on lead vocals, sounds angry as he growls and shouts his way through the first verse. It is heavy and the drums, now being played at blistering pace by band newcomer Boris Le Gal, are straight up death metal blasts.

The chorus, a clean singing section from keyboardist Victor Guillet, is catchy and when he and Aaron mix up the clean and death vocals, it sounds really good. The programming is very prominent in the chorus though it is well mixed and doesn’t detract from the metal too much, instead adding depth. The death metal is back in full force after the chorus with a ferocious and guttural death metal shout to introduce the second verse. It ends with a nice but short lead guitar solo from Lucas D’Angelo before dropping back into the chorus. It plays out towards the end with an almost off beat rhythm, more death metal vocals and added effects that sound a little choir like, though have a morose and sinister feel to them. The song fades out at the end, which is a little odd, as the band seem to be still singing and playing at full force so you find yourself trying hard to listen as they get quieter and quieter.

The band released the following statement – ”We are extremely pleased and proud to announce the release date of our third full-length album, The Resilient, out January 27th on Sumerian Records. After over a year and a half of hard work, taking into consideration our strengths and our weaknesses, looking back on our success and more importantly our downfalls, we can honestly say that this is by far the best material we have written since the beginning of this incredible journey. Betraying The Martyrs has been taken to a whole new level, we couldn’t be more excited to share the result of everything we have lived since day one; we are back. Without further ado, we are pleased to present to you our new single and music video for “Lost For Words”

I enjoyed this track, more than I thought I would, as I expected it to be rammed full of effects and programming to the detriment of the metal but I am happy to say I was wrong. Instead it is very well balanced actually. The vocals are strong and the drumming is particularly impressive. They are a good example of why we fans should ignore genre categorisation actually. Being known as a metalcore band may be off putting to some but I find this song is more than that with elements of other genres clearly also positive influences on the band.

Take a look at the song here and see what you think. Check the band out on their website, on Facebook or on Twitter to keep up to date with information on future releases and that new album. If you like what you hear, why not pre order it from here?