Sean McLennan

Emerging out of the early ‘00s as trailblazers of a defining new wave of heavy music, unleashing a fusion of metal and hardcore unlike anything heard up until that point, it’s no wonder why Killswitch Engage has remained as significant as they are today – 25 years into writing music together. The bond that exists between the band’s members resembles more of a tight-knit brotherhood. A friends first, music second approach, that’s allowed for their sound to consistently be as genuine and honest as it is explosive and fun.

Guitarists Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel, bassist Mike D’Antonio, drummer Justin Foley, and vocalist Jesse Leach have embraced their journey together with a praiseworthy persistence and commitment to crafting music that means as much to them, as it does to their listeners. The band’s ability to continuously redefine themself through their inimitable combinations of self expression and speed metal riffs, peace-seeking and pinch harmonics, and an all-powerful rhythmic backbone – all derived from their punk rock nucleus – reveals a more confident, stronger version of their sound with each new offering.

Enter This Consequence – Killswitch’s ninth testament to their resilience. A luminous snapshot of the metal vets collective creativity that, through the process of its creation, reinforced a powerful metaphor for life to vocalist Jesse Leach: “Whatever you’re going through, just keep going through it…Walk through the fire. Once you do that, the wisdom that you gain, that knowledge that you gain, will give you a sense of hope and positivity that you could have never imagined, had you not gone through that.”

The frontman explains further, “That’s really the journey of This Consequence, is dealing with the darkness. Not running from it, not numbing it, not drinking it away, not drugging it away. Sit with that shit, and what do you have to learn from it? What are your demons teaching you?”

Leach has put in a significant amount of effort to utilize his platform as a vocalist to spread messages of hope, love, unity, and inner strength, while continuously embracing his own emotional vulnerability.

Still, the fallout from the pandemic and other devastating events that occurred during that time, left him questioning so many different aspects of his life, including his lyrical and vocal capabilities. Struggling to channel that trauma into words during the writing period for the new record, Leach reveals, “I didn’t really know where my voice was, I didn’t know what I wanted to say. We were all dealing with this PTSD, you know? What we all went through was major, and if you didn’t question your entire existence during that time, then something’s wrong…I really did.”

Passing along major credit to all of his bandmates, especially for this record, there was a lot of conversation and pre-production surrounding Leach’s vocal contributions earlier on. Instead of just sending his vocal takes to Adam (Dutkiewicz), who produced the record, the singer explains, “I was sending it over to all the guys, so I had everyone critiquing my material. They were saying things like, ‘I kinda like that part, but what you’re saying there is a little cheesy,’ or ‘maybe word it differently because you’ve said that before in songs,’ or ‘the topic has just fallen flat for me, I’m not feeling it, bro, revisit it.’”

That happened enough to where Leach was having a very difficult time at the start of this record. But eventually, through that, he found his voice. “I found that sitting through my struggle and allowing my art and my words to, sort of, be killed and destroyed, and to move forward, it created this space where anything felt possible,” admits Leach.

Pulling from his guts, he dug deep to uncover his biggest breakthrough, lyrically, that made him come face to face with a sobering realization: The suppression of anger and frustration he had been concealing.

“I remember just seeing these flashes of wars, police brutality, massive corporations making billions of dollars while people are out in the streets because they can’t afford their rent and their businesses are closing. We went through this absolutely crazy time where you kinda had to go into survival mode, which, for me, was putting up this zen wall, retreating to the woods and trying to find peace within myself.”

Feeling like he had to answer for who he was coming out of the pandemic, filled with this lingering discontent, that’s when the song “Broken Glass” was presented to Leach. “That was the moment I decided to unleash this anger, channeling it through the dark topic of abuse,” he explains.

Written from the perspective of the person who’s being abused, Leach strongly felt, “We’ve all been abused in this society. The powers that be continue to abuse us, use us, and steal from us.”

He continues, “We’ve been asleep. We’ve been controlled. We’ve been manipulated, on such a grand scale…How are we still waging wars? How are people still fighting over minor differences?” Leach questions fervently. “In the grand scheme of things, we as people have so much more in common than we do differences. But yet those differences are pitted against us, like weapons. Why are we allowing this to happen?”

From that moment on, a sense of “righteous anger” took over Leach as he unloaded over the harder hitting bangers on This Consequence. Pouring out of his enraged spirit came the lyrics for “Discordant Nation,” “Collusion,” and “The Fall Of Us.”

“Then, out of nowhere – ‘I Believe,’” he remarks softly. Glimmering through the thick smoke of Leach’s indignation, he uncovered his buried hope. “I was like, ‘Oh, there I am. There’s the spirit that I identify with.’ I needed to unleash all of that anger to discover that…‘Forever Aligned’ came out of it. ‘I Believe’ came out of it, and I thought to myself, ‘now I’m seeing the bigger picture of this record.’”

Choosing “Forever Aligned” as the first taste of music off This Consequence, KsE introduced this new listening experience with the powerful message of “human love,” according to Leach. “The love that I’ve received from my wife and how our relationship has grown. In the same breath, it’s very much about all of us – universal love, that mystery we try to touch when we say we love somebody or we cherish somebody – the magic that’s there.”

Widening the scope of how that song plays into the bigger picture of the new album, Leach explains, “With This Consequence, it’s really me asking, ‘what about us? All of us.’ We’re living in a time where division is used as a weapon. We continue to lose touch with our human element through these machines and AI – all these things happening around us that feel like they are disconnecting us…Bringing human connectivity back is what I’m trying to do through that righteous anger. I want to make people feel heard and make people feel connected and make people feel like they’re not alone in this world. I love that. That’s why I’m still doing this, man.”

This Consequence is out now, and you can order it from Metal Blade Records. Follow Killswitch Engage on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.