Deep Cuts #16: It Dies Today – 'The Caitiff Choir'
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Deep Cuts #16: It Dies Today – 'The Caitiff Choir'
Looking back on a criminally underrated mid-2000s metalcore gem.
Artist: It Dies Today
Album: The Caitiff Choir
Release: September 21st, 2004
Label: Trustkill Records
Listen here: Spotify | YouTube
If there was a definitive tipping point for the metalcore, it would be the Year of Our Lord 2004.
With the second wave in full swing throughout the early years of the new millennium, this particular temporal convergence saw the release of several classic records from dedicated mainstays alongside early-career entries from future subgenre all-stars, including (but by no means limited to) Killswitch Engage’s The End of Heartache, Misery Signals’ Of Malice and the Magnum Heart, Atreyu’s The Curse, Eighteen Visions’ Obsession, Unearth’s The Oncoming Storm, Bury Your Dead’s Cover Your Tracks, Zao’s The Funeral of God, Parkway Drive’s Don’t Close Your Eyes, Caliban’s The Opposite From Within, and Bring Me The Horizon’s This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For.
However, one album that’s often rarely discussed in the ongoing conversation surrounding metalcore’s golden age is the Trustkill debut from Buffalo, New York’s second-favourite sons: The Caitiff Choir by It Dies Today.
One possible reason for It Dies Today’s overlooked status in the greater chain of metalcore legacy acts has to do with location.
While the band formed in 2001 when most members were still in high school and had an average age of sixteen, the group spent their early years hitting the ground running. After dropping their three-track demo, Let the Angels Whisper Your Name followed by their Forever Scorned EP (2002) through Life Sentence Records, the young quintet managed to land some notable support slots and mini-tour runs with established heavy hitters like Between the Buried and Me and Alexisonfire.
And yet, within Buffalo, the band found often found themselves struggling to win over the hometown crowd, especially when the band’s origins coincided with the early rise of Buffalo’s O.G. hardcore heroes, Every Time I Die. As vocalist and frontman Nicholas Brooks told Punk Rock Interviews:
“Nobody goes over well in Buffalo. Basically, that’s still the case. The only band that does really well in Buffalo is Every Time I Die. They’re basically huge there, and every show they play there is sold out. Those guys are awesome. But our shows there are getting a little bit better because we got signed and stuff, but they’re still pretty weak.
[…]
Our hometown never really liked us, which was weird and kind of sucked. Like, we’d go 3000 miles away from home and play a ridiculously huge show, and then come home and play for 70 people or something. It’s weird.”
However, their collective fortunes would soon change for the better. Following a quick member shuffle, the band’s lineup coalesced around its predominant configuration—Brooks, guitarists Chris Cappelli and Mike Hatalak, drummer Nick Mirusso, with former guitarist Steve Lemke moving to bass—and they soon signed with independent label Trustkill Records, home to scene luminaries such as Throwdown, Eighteen Visions, and Bleeding Through.
In the lead-up to the release of their first full-length and Trustkill debut, the record’s lead single, “A Threnody for Modern Romance,” arrived with a bang.
While the track’s accompanying video (in all of its 240p glory) isn’t much to look at now eighteen years later, the track remains a succinct and satisfying introduction to the band’s sonic signature on The Caitiff Choir.
Furious double-kick bursts from Mirusso clear the path for Cappelli and Hatalak’s crunchy riffs, harmonised chugs, and tasteful melodic licks. It’s clear that the group know their way around a good hook, too, with Brooks providing a super sticky chorus to complement the savage ferocity of his hardcore bark.
Not ones to totally ignore the tried-and-true conventions of the subgenre, the band make full use of the track’s concise three-and-a-half-minute runtime, packing in a floor clearing breakdown (thickened up considerably by Lemke’s shuddering bottom-end), a cheeky glam-adjacent guitar solo, monstrous reverse snare hits, and the obligatory hand clap to gang vocal pivot in the bridge section.
While none of the elements above are necessarily revolutionary when considered in isolation, or even when judged by the standards of the subgenre for 2004, it’s their compositional and stellar execution that set It Dies Today apart from other bands of their ilk on The Caitiff Choir.
What makes the album truly stand out, at least for me, is its unabashed self-awareness, deliberately walking the very fine line between stylistic versatility, verbose melodrama, and ruthless, all-consuming cohesion.
Take songs like album opener “My Promise” or “The Depravity Waltz”. Both tracks are undeniably heavy, featuring crushing, destructive breakdown passages that wield thick, down-tuned guitars and demonic screams like glorious weapons of war.
Drawing influence from gothic poetry and Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Brooks screams passionately about “fear, loathing, resentment, and spite” on the former, before declaring “there is nothing pure in this world” on the latter, ending on a biblical call to wipe the Earth’s slate clean. It’s a song that’s all too fitting for the end of the world, and It Dies Today do their utmost to sound truly apocalyptic.
At the sonic level, these cuts combine the wrecking crew mentality of The Acacia Strain with the melodic accessibility of As I Lay Dying, and it’s a real testament to the group’s proficient songwriting that these reference points never feel overbearing or forced in any way. Similarly, more restrained, mid-tempo entries like “The Radiance” and “Marigold” still pack a hefty punch, dialling back on the intensity to let Brooks flex his clean pipes.
All of this is to say that, given their considerable talents, it’s a shame It Dies Today and The Caitiff Choir aren’t held in higher regard by metalcore’s senior-most evangelists. The album still feels fresh and invigorating close to two decades from its initial release, with stylistic hallmarks resonating across the subgenre throughout much of that time.
The album’s second single—the glorious, Myspace-aping “Severed Ties Yield Severed Heads”—has all the signifiers of a bonafide Atreyu hit, complete with runny mascara, all-black outfits, bass slide detonations, and harmonised cleans.
Meanwhile, “Freak Gasoline Fight Accident” (yes, that is a Zoolander reference) plays out like a map to the territory covered by acts like Memphis May Fire and Miss May I several years later, and album standout “Our Disintegration” has a chorus to closing half-time breakdown as outro that practically screams pre-Homesick A Day To Remember.
While It Dies Today would follow up the album with 2006’s well-received Sirens, and garner placement on a few blockbuster film soundtracks, the departure of Brooks a year later effectively derailed the band’s future momentum. I was never a big fan of the band’s Lividity-era material with Jason Wood (Kamilla, The Orphan) as replacement frontman, and even seeing them at Soundwave in 2010 didn’t come close to capturing the magic of their original LP.
After their breakup and hiatus in 2012, the band eventually reformed with their original line-up for The Caitiff Choir’s tenth anniversary in 2014, playing a handful of shows and even releasing a promising sample of new material. However, even that reunion was short-lived and it seems the band is now permanently shelved.
As much as they’re well-worn cliches, The Caitiff Choir was both ahead of its time and wholly representative of lightning in a bottle. There’s a passion and commitment captured on the record that’s impossible to fake, with a young band giving it their all and having nothing to prove. Nonetheless, despite its criminally underappreciated status, it remains a highly influential album for the metalcore subgenre.
You can find all of the albums in this series in the TPD // Deep Cuts playlist.