Hearing King Yosef’s music evolve over the past few years has been exciting, as the Portland based artist has covered a lot of ground with each new release. Early on he explored hip-hop and trap, producing material for Soundcloud rappers and other underground artists, and the music bearing the King Yosef name reflected some of these same influences. But with each new EP, single, and album, things have moved towards the realms of industrial, hardcore, and the intersection between the rock, metal, and electronic spaces. One of the biggest shifts has been a contrast of outright aggression and somber, subdued elements that had a darker slant to them, giving material like 2023’s An Underlying Hum a bit more variation than some of the sheer anger of earlier works. 2025’s Spire Of Fear continues that transformation further, covering even more stylistic ground while also offering a more cohesive listen than its immediate predecessor.
Where industrial rock/metal seemed to retreat into the depths of the underground for a good portion of the 2010’s, in recent years it’s seen a boom in popularity thanks to some crossover with different metal genres. This puts King Yosef in a particularly good spot, as Spire Of Fear pulls both sides of the industrial and metal spectrum in ways that are familiar but retain an identity of their own. Some of Yosef’s prior material kept the foot on the gas the entire time with noisy electronics and aggressive screams, which made for an intense but sometimes uniform listen. An Underlying Hum shook things up more, and Spire Of Fear has perfected that back and forth. “Molting Fear” is a great early example, as initially the song hits you with pulsating, dense electronics and drums that feel somewhere between industrial metal and hardcore. To me it comes across like the pulsating, abrasive rhythms of earlier Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy but with a bit of death metal buzzsaw tonality. But there’s a well-placed break right towards the end that lets a haunting dark melody hover over the recording for a moment, like the calm before all hell unleashes in a horror movie. This type of back and forth defines the album, as sometimes its woven into the individual tracks themselves while other times the songs use their entire run to explore a specific tone. “Vi Coactus” is one of the heaviest metal/hardcore leaning songs with heavy, destructive breakdowns, while “Walter” spends much of its run exploring a much slower, somber soundscape that reminds me of Deftones and Jesu, and this is just scratching the surface of everything King Yosef is channeling on this album.
My first exposure to King Yosef’s material was his collaboration with Youth Code, which focused on his abrasive screams/yells. There’s still plenty of the aggressive side on Spire Of Fear, but this only represents a portion of everything that makes up the vocal performance. “Feoil” and “Molting Fear” do amp up the intensity right from the get-go, but the former does shake things up with some haunting spoken word. By the time you reach “Glimmer” it’s clear there’s a lot more depth to the vocals, as you get somber, contemplative singing that transitions over to the harsher elements later in the song. This is also emphasized on later cuts like “Walter”, which prove to be just as memorable as the in your face moments. King Yosef had started utilizing more clean singing on An Underlying Hum, but it sounds a bit more confident and fully realized this time around.
Some of King Yosef’s transitional EP’s and singles went more towards straight industrial and industrial metal, but his albums have really broadened the sound significantly. This latest effort leans even more into the hardcore, metalcore, and other metallic sides of the writing without losing the industrial pulse and jagged edges, plus you also get hints of shoegaze in some of the somber melodies. Combine that with the fact that the harsh and melodic transitions are more seamless than before, and you have an album that stands out as one of the best 2025 has to offer. Spire Of Fear is available from Bleakhouse.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg