The Number Twelve Looks Like You – Howls from the Holographic Heart
Release Date: 16th October 2026
Label: Equal Vision Records
Order/Stream
Genre: Mathcore, Post-Hardcore, Metalcore.
FFO: The Fall of Troy, The Blood Brothers, Dillinger Escape Plan.
Review By: Jeff Finch
Maybe it’s me, and I’m just not privy to something obvious, but I have genuine concerns for the referenced individual that looks like the number 12…it shouldn’t be possible. *Anyway* This band goes way back to my college days when, in a fevered state after playing Guitar Hero, I needed bands to scratch that Fall of Troy itch since I’d already bought their entire discography, and holy shit, did these guys take the assignment seriously and do the optional extra credit. Their newest album comes along a whopping seven years after their post-hiatus gem Wild Gods, an album that demonstrated the boys hadn’t lost a step in 10 years. Not quite taking it to the double-digit waiting period, Howls from the Holographic Heart is here and is one of the finest post-hardcore/mathcore albums I’ve heard in a long while.
While chaos is the name of the game, melody and excellent songwriting are large parts of that game, as well, yielding an album whose less abrasive tracks brilliantly complement the utterly vicious tendencies, a range of sounds and emotions that might make your head spin. Look no further than the first two tracks, Trust Chaos and Glow in the Dark Skin. The former, the opener, rips through the speakers with blatant disregard for the very concept of an introduction period, time signatures measured in imaginary numbers and abstract concepts, the guitar playing somehow both frenzied and impossibly tight. The drumming is particularly lights out; the constant shifts in beat are undoubtedly too much for a common man like myself to fully comprehend, and when paired with the deliriously frantic screams of lead vocalist Jase Korman, such that it would make Greg Puciato proud, it’s a veritable feast of freneticism. The latter, however, finds itself on the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, an entirely clean singing, airy, almost ethereal sound, but it belies what’s underneath. The musicality is still technical as hell, the drum patterns and shifts in riffs still pumping through, though a casual listener may not pick up on that. But approach it from all angles and the controlled demolition underneath becomes clear; the how points in an entirely different direction, the why completely irrelevant, because this math doesn’t answer to anybody.
What makes this album, and the band in general, so much fun is the near impossibility of knowing what’s coming next; is it going to be an Astronoid-esque song, light vocals and razor sharp music, a perfect post-hardcore song to jam with its infectious chorus (False Face) or is it a song where caution and sensical melodies are forsaken for bedlam, intensely tight riffs, spastic percussion, and vocals that sound like someone being chased in a horror film but at 200 bpm (closer Joy Is A Weapon). Or perhaps something in between, where the vocal melodicism works in tandem with some heavy, manic musicianship (Dancing Before The Flood). Regardless of what comes next, the result is the same: a band whose confidence oozes through the music, the constant shifts in melody and vocal harmonies proving to be no obstacle for these Jersey boys.
Simply put, this record showcases a group whose members are each experts in their field, nothing they can’t do, nothing they won’t do. It is the mathcore equivalent of watching virtuosos throw caution, convention, and apparently several laws of physics out the window. As Rod Serling once put it, you are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. In this case, however, the destination is considerably louder.
(5 / 5)
