There is a difference between writing about pain and allowing it to dictate the direction of an entire record. For Florida’s Afterlife, that distinction sits at the heart of The Pain That Shapes Us, set for release on 6 November via Mascot Records, the album confronts the experiences which have shaped vocalist Tyler Levenson’s early life without pretending that suffering is something to celebrate.
Levenson’s childhood was marked by domestic and verbal abuse, followed by a period in juvenile detention between the ages of 15 and 17. Leaving home at 18, he found a sense of belonging among people who shared his love of Slipknot, Linkin Park and Papa Roach. That connection eventually became Afterlife, a band whose rise has taken them from personal struggles to festival stages and tours alongside the likes of Ice Nine Kills and Bury Tomorrow.
The Pain That Shapes Us feels like a reckoning with that journey. Its eleven tracks are united by an interest in the damage people carry, but the band’s willingness to approach that subject from different angles is what makes the album compelling.
‘A Thousand Warnings’ opens the record before ‘Bad Habits’ and ‘Vertigo’ establish a world of frustration, instability and emotional conflict. The titles alone suggest a collection concerned with the patterns that are difficult to escape, while ‘Bleed You Dry’ and ‘Sick Of It’ point towards the more confrontational side of the band’s personality.
Yet it is the quieter moments that offer the most revealing insight into Afterlife’s development. ‘Empty’, a heartbreak song built around emotional exhaustion, deliberately abandons the screaming and rapping that have helped define the band’s sound. Instead, Levenson allows the song to exist through clean vocals, creating an intimacy that feels particularly significant within an album so closely connected to his past. It is a decision that gives the record room to breathe. Heavy music can communicate anger with remarkable force, but vulnerability requires a different kind of courage. ‘Empty’ suggests that Afterlife understand the difference, and that their willingness to expose themselves extends beyond the obvious aggression of their music.
The closing stretch, ‘More To Life’ and ‘Parasite Of The Mind’, brings the album’s central conflict into focus. There is the possibility of moving forward, but also the persistent influence of thoughts and experiences that refuse to remain in the past. It is a fitting tension for a record concerned with the complicated relationship between personal history and identity.
Levenson describes the album as the most honest and vulnerable statement the band have made. What makes that claim interesting is not the promise of emotional revelation alone, but the suggestion that Afterlife are prepared to reconsider what their music can be.
The Pain That Shapes Us does not need to turn suffering into inspiration to justify its existence. Its more interesting proposition is that the things which shape us need not have the final say. For a band whose identity has been forged through difficult experiences, that is a powerful place to begin.