I have been a rabid (yes I said what I said) fan of Motionless In White since Graveyard Shift. Sure I wasn’t there at the begining but I will always support MIW. The last album Scoring the End of the World hit me so hard in the feels/heart. It was exactly what I needed in the middle of Covid while struggling with mental health issues.
Not every album is going to make everyone happy and MIW has embraced that. They love their fans but they are making music for them. This album releases 20 years from their start and has something from every album to pay homage to MIW’s history and journey. Early fans of their first album Creatures seem to have negative things to say about this one but true fans grow with a band while enjoying the nostalgia. Here is the track list:
- Decades
- log_in//crash_out
- R.I.P. (Feat. Skylar Grey)
- Fight Like Hell
- Playing God (Feat. Corey Taylor)
- All That I’ve Ever Known
- Blood Rave (Feat. Dark Divine)
- Love at First Bite
- Count Back From Zero
- Blood Pact
- Afraid of the Dark
- Sunglasses at Night
- Hollywood (Bonus Track)
- Fight Like Hell (Feat. Outlier) (Bonus Track)
One of the coolest trends that came from their first single, Afraid of the Dark, is all these videos of rescue dogs set to the song. This one is my favorite:
Initially My favorite song was “Afraid of the Dark”. This absolute love letter to the fans is emotional and powerful. Chris Motionless put his whole heart and soul into these songs and it shows. Check out the music video:
My favorite song then became R.I.P. and still is. This song is the definition of Hauntingly Beautiful. I love the Love songs MIW does and this makes me think of my wife every time I hear it. The visuals in the music video are stunning and Skylar Grey’s vocals are insane. She is seriously talented.
As much as I love Corey Taylor and the Song Playing God which rips into Cancel Culture and how dumb internet trolls are. I have to say my next favorite song is a tie between the cover of 80’s classic Sunglasses at Night, and Love at first Bite. There is a big Vampire theme through this whole album and this song seems to be the Vampire companion to the previous album’s Werewolf.
This album combines so many different styles in one fantastic package. Chris Motionless said in an interview with Apple Music
“I didn’t have a ‘it has to sound this way’ mentality. We’ve had back luck with that in the past, because when you’re writing inside a box, it just doesn’t seem to yield good results. So, this time I just wanted to explore where the band was at in all the different styles of heavier music that we like to enjoy and create.”
This is exactly what I love about MIW. As I said Earlier, they know the direction they want to go and don’t care what fans they loose as long as it is work they can be proud of. Don’t take my word for it when you can hear this sentiment from the man himself.
I may not have loved every song on my first listen but those few that I liked grew on my to the point that I love every song on the album. I like to wait before I do an album review. I may not be competitive with those that rate it on release, but I want to fully give an album my attention before I make an opinion.
I don’t do physical media much outside of books. My wife and I have a book storage problem. The main reason for not doing physical media is just because of the need for space. However, I have bought every anniversary vinyl from MIW as well as the last album and this one. Thanks to a processing issue, I was able to get 2 versions of this album. There is only one album I am missing and that is the first one, Creatures. They didn’t put out an anniversary album that I know of or can find for that one. I ordered the white Variant because I wanted the autographed card and was initially sent the dark picture disk.
This album has quickly become my favorite album of 2026 and based on my Apple Music Replay for July I listened to this album 12 times. No surprise this is a 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃. Go check it out wherever you get your music.
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