Final Coil—The World We Inherited (2024)

Details

Produced, mixed and mastered by Russ Russell. Recorded at Parlour Studios. Cover artwork by Andy Pilkington. Photographs by Ester Segarra. Released on Tuesday 16 January 2024 via Sliptrick Records.

Band

Philip Stiles—Vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and synths
Richard Awdry—Lead guitar, backing vocals and synths
Jola Stiles—Bass
Barry French—Drums

Tracks

The world we inherited
Wires
Chemtrails
By starlight
The growing shadows
Stay with me
Purify
Out of sorts
Humanity
End of history

Review

Wow! That’s what I have to say about this masterpiece new album from Leicester, England-based alternative rock band Final Coil.

Having loved Final Coil’s 2019 album The World We Left Behind for Others (2019) (95%), I was delighted to see this third and final piece of their triptych of records drop into my review inbox. But I didn’t listen to it straight away, I first spun up its sequel and listened to the two albums back to back, marvelling at how the opening track is a perfect continuation of the previous work’s final and eponymous track. I was hooked.

Since their earliest beginnings, Final Coil have created music of substance, songs of inspired musical imagination and lyrical weight, carefully sculpted from deep wells of thought and emotion. Each release from this remarkable band is a gem to be admired, a monument of creativity.

This latest album, The World We Inherited (2024), represents the crowning glory of a trilogy of records that began with their vibrant debut The Persistence of Memory (2017) and continued with the highly critically acclaimed The World We Left Behind For Others (2019). As ever with Final Coil it represents a huge stride forward into ever richer and more colourful landscapes of sound and more challenging, thought provoking lyrical exploration.

The lyrical content of the previous albums examined our past, focusing on the societal failings that have brought us to our troubled present. The World We Inherited (2024) turns its gaze to the future and the shadows of fear and division that bleed across our horizon.

Inspired in no small part by a long and winding conversation with Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman and the prophetic, dystopian fiction of George Orwell, The World We Inherited (2024) wanders through a murky, broken world of conspiracy theories, authoritarian politics and chilling isolation woven together by beautifully textured melodies and musical layers. The result is an album that passes the listener through a breath-taking experience of melancholy, fierce intensity, passion, terror, confusion and starlit glimmers of hope.

Drawing on the textures of post-rock, the emotional drive of grunge, the fire of heavy rock and the imaginative freedom of progressive rock and metal, Final Coil’s sound is both fresh and original while rooted in an array of influences from across the musical spectrum.

Utilizing fluid bass work, Jola Stiles supplements and stabilizes the entwined guitar interplay of Phil Stiles and Richard Awdry. Barry French’s dynamic drumming navigates the band through the band’s meticulously crafted song structures, while Phil’s emotive vocals deliver a narrative arc that builds with each song.

Conclusion

This has been another release that has delayed my listening to other albums—I just keep coming back to it again and again and again. Just one more listen before I write this review and move on…

When I reviewed The World We Left Behind For Others (2019), I didn’t realise this was part two of a three-part concept. I now have to discover The Persistence of Memory (2017) and listen to this as it was meant to be. Brilliant stuff. Moving, emotional, emotive, this release has touched my soul.

Review score: 95%

Video

Disclosure

Imperative PR contacted me inviting me to preview Final Coil’s forthcoming album, thank you. I have no connections to either Imperative PR or Final Coil. I’m not being paid to review this, but I did get a free digital copy of the album to review which is pretty cool. Many thanks to Imperative PR, and to Final Coil for continuing to create fresh, exciting new music.