Symptoms of Survival

Pressure is the governing sensation on Symptoms of Survival: guitars that snap between blunt-force rhythm and melodic release, drums that keep the music physically urgent, and Emma Boster’s voice turning vulnerability into confrontation. Dying Wish come from Portland, Oregon and are described by Wikipedia as a melodic metalcore band, a useful label here because the record’s power lies in refusing to choose between abrasion and emotional clarity.

The album is the group’s second full-length, following 2021’s Fragments of a Bitter Memory. Dying Wish announced in 2023 that they were recording its follow-up, then began revealing the new material with “Torn from Your Silhouette”. “Watch My Promise Die” followed in July and arrived with the announcement of Symptoms of Survival, which was released through SharpTone Records on 3 November 2023. That year also brought the band’s first headlining US tour, placing the album at a point where their profile and confidence were clearly expanding together.

The line-up documented around this period centres on Boster alongside guitarists Pedro Carrillo and Sam Reynolds, drummer Jeff Yambra and bassist Jon Mackey. Their arrangement style makes heaviness feel mobile rather than monolithic.

Riffs lock hard when they need to, but the melodic element keeps breaking through, creating contrast instead of simply stacking aggression on aggression. Tracks including “Torn from Your Silhouette”, “Watch My Promise Die”, “Lost in the Fall”, “Path to Your Grave” and “Paved in Sorrow” were all represented in the band’s 2023 video output, showing how fully this era dominated their activity.

There is a useful directness to Symptoms of Survival. It does not treat intensity as an end in itself; the sharper hooks and melodic turns make the brutal passages hit harder, while Boster’s performance keeps the centre of gravity human. For listeners coming from hardcore, metal or the more melodic edge of heavy music, it is a record whose appeal lies in tension: controlled and chaotic, vulnerable and defiant, punishing but never featureless.