Album Review: Defeater - Letters Home

Album Rating: B

Perhaps the most decisive question to ask yourself before listening to Letters Home, is which Defeater do you prefer? Did you fall for the brutal anger and honesty of debut Travels? Or were you more taken with the progressive Empty Days and Sleepless Nights? If you unquestionably lean toward the former and not the latter, then Letters Home is likely to tick all the boxes which the sophomore release failed to. There is no “White Oak Doors” to be found here, and you’re certainly in no danger of finding four acoustic songs glued to the tail of the album. By all intents and purposes, this is Defeater going back to Defeater, a notion which lead vocalist Derek Archaumbault enthusiastically confirms: “Letters Home brings it back to why we started this band in the first place five years ago.”

Album Review: Defeater - Empty Days & Sleepless Nights

“If this is how it’s going to be/ then I would rather die at the hands of my own family.”
Defeater - "White Oak Doors"


The relationship between heavy music and I has become more strained with every stilted display of aggression that leaves me jaded and unmoved. In a genre that needs honest passion as a backbone to function, where's the solace? With metalcore's sovereignty in recent years, overflowing with breakdowns devoid with emotion, I can remain grateful in being able to trust hardcore bands such as Defeater as my oasis and supplier of heavier music I can get behind. In the same way that 2010 brought me the introspective wildfire that was Pianos Become The Teeth's Old Pride,  2011 has broken down my doors and arrived with Defeater's sophomore double LP, Empty Days & Sleepless Nights.