Fleshwater returns with a set of songs more dense, multifaceted, and – ahem – fleshed out than their debut.
Release date: September 5, 2025 | Closed Casket Activites | Instagram | Twitter | Bandcamp
What’s this? A second Deftonescore review in one week on EIN from someone who isn’t Dominik? What can I say, I’m chock-full of surprises – although not as many as Boston-based quintet Fleshwater. Formed by several members of industrial metalcore heavyweights Vein.FM (who, on 2022’s This World is Going to Ruin You, flirted with some tasteful Deftones worship themselves), Fleshwater‘s 2022 debut album, We’re Not Here to Be Loved, took some of Vein.FM‘s metalcore elements and blended them with a healthy dose of Deftones‘ signatures: crunching mid-tempo riffs, shoegazey atmospherics, oblique lyricism. Giving them a sound distinct from their forebears, however, are the dual vocals from Anthony DiDio and Marisa Shirar, with him handling the Chino Moreno-esque crooning and her belting out the more melodic lines. It was a winning formula that landed We’re Not Here to Be Loved in the #1 spot of my favorite albums of 2022, above even Vein.FM‘s own offering that same year. It left me tremendously excited for whatever Fleshwater dropped next.
Before going on to my review of 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky, it’s worth mentioning that a good deal of Fleshwater‘s appeal comes from nostalgia for the alternative metal stylings of the late ’90s/early ’00s. While Deftones have maintained and even surpassed their initial popularity to become one of the dominant alt-metal bands of their era still touring and releasing music, many of the newer groups that have followed their sonic lead have either come off as uninspired retreads, or else have emphasized certain aspects of their patented sound – a little more nu-metal, a little more ‘gaze, a little more electronics, etc. (something borne out by Fleshwater releasing Sounds of Grieving, a mostly electronic remix album of the songs from We’re Not Here to Be Loved, in 2023). The boy-girl singing approach is also nothing particularly new, with countless shoegaze bands swiping that dynamic from the OGs like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. Even the album’s numeric title seems deliberately designed to transport the listener back to the turn of the century, when JNCOs and spiked hair ran rampant in the music scene.
Why, then, does Fleshwater stand out so? The details that littered We’re Not Here to Be Loved gave it character – wisps of grunge peppered many of Shirar’s tunes, and the metalcore background from the other members gave the music muscle and a frantic intensity at times on tracks like “Woohoo” and “Foreign,” complimented excellently by Kurt Ballou‘s always-impressive production. That said, some of the songs, like the barely one-minute “Kiss the Ladder,” could have benefited from extrapolating on the ideas presented and given more time to breathe (We’re Not Here to Be Loved only runs to a brisk 27 minutes in total).
With 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky (as mystifying a title as any one can think up), it feels as though Fleshwater have set out to address some of these concerns. For one, the album runs a full 10 minutes longer than their debut. Additionally, Vein.FM drummer Matt Wood has left the fold after tragically breaking his wrist in 2022, and in comes new drummer Josian Soto-Ramos from Georgian metal band Agonize (who I interviewed earlier this year as our Weekly Featured Artist). He slots in perfectly, propelling the songs forward when need be (the breakbeats on “Last Escape” giving some Linkin Park “Faint” or Slipknot “Eyeless” vibes) and holding back during the more restrained moments (the trip-hop of “Be Your Best” sounding like a mix of “Teenager” from Deftones‘ seminal White Pony and “Loomer” off of My Bloody Valentine‘s towering Loveless).
On the whole, the band has gotten more ambitious with song structures, more intricate with their genre-melding. The opening “Drowning Song” features what sounds like sleigh bells accompanying Shirar’s versatile vocals, layering herself with harmonies, coos, and lyrics about how hearing the ‘same words, same fears… just pull me down.’ It sets the tone for “Green Street,” which picks up the pace and moves through several different sections of varying tempos: flashes of guitar feedback, dissonance, and blastbeats give the spotlight to Shirar desperately singing ‘what’s left to talk about/when all I wanted was to help‘ while DiDio screeches ‘and with what’s left of me/all I want is destiny‘ behind her. The biggest left turn comes at the end of the song, when the last 30 seconds introduce a somewhat forlorn alt-metal riff. It’s a piece of music that could’ve easily been left on the cutting room floor, but its inclusion ends “Green Street” on a dejected note, acting as an emphasis to the lyrical themes explored earlier in the track. Already, Fleshwater has expanded on the package their first album showcased into a more holistic experience.
The superlative single “Jetpack” brings in more of DiDio’s clean vocals, which serves a purpose beyond just creating a contrast with Shirar. The bridge of the song features him singing ‘seven years of unrest/does it end like this?‘ Is he referring to the current hiatus of Vein.FM? Their debut dropped in 2018, which is seven years ago… I don’t mean to speculate or create ‘tea’ as the young folks say, but it’s an intriguing line for him to sing clearly on this album. If Fleshwater has in fact taken precedence for the shared members of both bands, I would consider that a net positive if it means more buoyant, catchy songs like “Jetpack” are being released. It may be lazy to describe Shirar’s voice as reminiscent of ‘Amy Lee with more energy,’ but especially the way she softly lilts off the end of her high notes on this song make the comparison valid. Bitterness, longing, determination and sadness all rub elbows seamlessly on “Jetpack,” making it a highlight in the tracklist.
The album’s back half features plenty more highlights. DiDio’s singing dominates the majority of “Jerome Town,” making the song the most Deftones-ish on the album. The guitar riff stops, starts, undulates and then mutates again, giving the song fluidity and purpose. When he breaks out his screams for the last verse (‘in a stable place, on a broken road/and where it leads I have to know‘), the effect is hard-hitting and cathartic. “Raging Storm” showcases Soto-Ramos’ propulsive drum fills and cymbal work, while the poignant “Silverine” – featuring only bass guitar and Shirar‘s gorgeous singing/words (‘in my dreams, you’re awake/they won’t last‘) – reads like a letter to a lost loved one and is entirely successful at tugging the listener’s heartstrings.
“Endless Sky,” the closing almost-title track, takes all the sounds and moods from the album and combines them into a five-minute mini-epic. The lyrics are esoteric but relatable:
‘This air, it feels like home (when I’m all alone),
Repair, it’s built on hope,
In a dream, of a sky unknown.‘
It begs the question of the listener: are you searching for YOUR endless sky? Is it about finding your place, your passions, your true love in a world filled with doubt, worry, violence, and despair? Or is just a dream we hang onto, knowing it’s unachievable? Fleshwater begins the album drowning and ends it floating through the heavens, implying that in order to become who we really are underneath, we need to die first: however scary it is to shed ourselves of what holds us back, it’s necessary to find the life we want and deserve to live. With 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky, Fleshwater have completed their mission to tell the world that they’re here to stay and aren’t just some throwback alternative metal group; they’re going to keep searching, reaching higher, all the way into that endless infinity we look up to every night and wonder, ‘what’s out there?’ More Fleshwater, I hope.
