Bring On the Psychics
Quality
Alternative
Hardcore
Intense
Nostalgic
IndieThe review
Quicksand's fifth album finds the post-hardcore veterans sounding unexpectedly rejuvenated, with reviewers describing songs built for the stage — short, punchy, and tightly paced, with an energy that holds up even on the record's quieter, more melodic stretches. The opening run is repeatedly singled out as some of the strongest material of the band's career, with riffs, grooves, and hooks that critics say land harder than anything on their recent output, and one widely echoed heavy mid-album cut praised as the kind of track that could have been a genuine radio moment in another era.
The production and performances draw consistent praise — the band's blend of crushing riffs with more atmospheric, shoegaze-adjacent textures is called a natural, earned evolution rather than a reinvention, and the overall sequencing keeps momentum from front to back. The most consistent knock is the lyric writing, which several critics call a weak point relative to the music itself — serviceable rather than sharp, carried more by melody and groove than by what's actually being said. A handful of reviewers also flag the closing track as a slight anticlimax, wanting something more expansive to send the record off, and single out one late-album guitar solo as feeling underbaked next to the rest of the performances.
Where critics diverge is mostly on how far the album's more restrained moments should be forgiven — some hear a mature widening of the band's palette, others find a section or two coasting compared to the record's best material. Almost nobody disputes that this is a genuine return to form rather than a legacy act going through the motions.
Who it's for
Longtime post-hardcore and '90s alt-metal listeners who grew up on Quicksand's early catalog will find this the most satisfying thing the band has released in years — it leans into the heavier, riff-driven side of their sound while folding in newer atmospheric touches. Fans of bands that blend aggression with melody and space (think acts that bridge hardcore and shoegaze) will find plenty to like, as will anyone who wants an album engineered for high-energy live performance.
Who it's not for
Listeners hoping for dense, quotable lyricism should temper expectations — the words are functional rather than a selling point. Anyone expecting the band to fully replicate the rawer, more abrasive edge of their earliest material may find some of the record's melodic detours a little tame by comparison, and the ending may feel like it undersells the momentum built earlier in the tracklist. — mild profanity
Birds of a feather...
- MusicAurora (2026)
A late-career renewal record from a decades-deep band using structural sequencing (a hook-dense opening trio, a heavy centerpiece, an anticlimactic closer) to argue it still has teeth, with critical reception split exactly between 'best of their career' and 'a bit tame' depending on how much weight is put on matching past intensity.
85% - MusicThe Confuser (2026)
A decades-deep artist confronting mortality directly in his lyrics while keeping the music buoyant and hook-driven -- the same trick of using musical energy to counterbalance blunt confrontations with finite time.
82% - MusicSPLAT! (2026)
A legacy act well into its career confronting finite time with riff-driven vitality rather than confession, aimed squarely at listeners who already love the band's history -- the same late-career-renewal frame and mortality-through-energy move as SPLAT!, minus the metaphysical resolution.
68% - MusicForeign Tongues (2026)
A different genre entirely, but the same core late-career dynamic: a decades-in band front-loading its strongest material, using riff-driven vitality to confront mortality and relevance, and drawing critical splits over whether the back half sustains that energy.
62% - MusicThe Ground Above (2026)
A late-career record processing grief and endurance into hard-won resilience rather than despair, sharing the mortality-as-vitality thematic core even though the sonic palette is folk-adjacent rather than riff-driven.
62% - MusicSongs of Personal Loss and Protest (2026)
A longtime rock showman processing grief and decline through groove and catharsis rather than confessional dwelling, echoing the vitality-under-pressure stance even though the genre leans garage-blues instead of metal-adjacent riffing.
60% - MusicAn Eraser and a Maze (2026)
A band circling middle age and mortality obliquely through wit and structural looseness rather than direct statement, appealing to a similar legacy-fan audience even though the emotional register is more evasive.
55% - Musici think i want to go home now. (2026)
Mortality and inherited grief delivered through hook-forward, high-energy arrangements that deliberately contrast bleak lyrical content with musical buoyancy, a similar structural trick even if the genre and specificity differ.
50%