REVIEW: A Winter's Remorse - The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us [2026]

Artist: A Winter’s RemorseAlbum: The Day Our Gods Abandoned UsThe year is 2022; the now-robust deathcore revival is in its earliest stages with artists like The Queen Guillotined, Tracheotomy and—you guessed it—A Winter’s Remorse. Memoirs of a Broken Mind received considerable praise, and rightfully so. It was among the first and remains one of the finest revival-type deathcore efforts when it comes to bringing the raw and ruthless energy of the late-2000s into modernity. Now, a solid four years later, the band return with The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us, a release that leaves deathcore behind in favor of a sound more entrenched in the grey area between nostalgic metalcore and riff-driven melodic death metal. Where A Winter’s Remorse earn points for not overstaying their welcome in MySpace revivalism—an increasingly gimmick-laden scene—the result of their renewed focus is ultimately called into question. The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us abandons the aggressive throes and lacerating blast beats abundant on their debut in favor of melody and ambiance, and the result, frankly, falls a little flat. A relatively barren soundscape studded with few moments worth revisiting, The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us takes a risk that doesn’t totally pay off.The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us is, fundamentally, an instrumentally strong record. Songs like the record’s title track or the sprawling “Eulogy” highlight riveting fretwork over a canvas of pummeling percussion and robust, hearty bass—while record highlights “Eve of Calamity” and “An Undying Flame” draw special attention to A Winter’s Remorse and their preserved ability to bring about raucous, ruthless mosh. If you’re reading this with fond memories (pun intended, somewhat) of Memoirs of a Broken Mind, you’re probably saying to yourself “sure, but what’s new?” And that’s a fair point—razor-sharp riffs and gut wrenching breakdowns have long since been on the menu when it comes to the Houston outfit’s sound. The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us frames these moments of technical complexity and tremendous aggression in the context of nostalgic metalcore-meets-melodic death metal. Songs like the arid “Disintegration” and “Forsaken Prophecy” sacrifice the emphasis on mountain-moving mosh parts and a non-stop onslaught of furious fretwork for steady, energetic percussion that bolsters a combination of punchy leads and atmospheric programming. All the while, mid-range roars and harsh screams chip away at the listener, furthering the immersive leap the band take into a more melodic territory.That same dive is where things start to fall apart for A Winter’s Remorse. Where songs like “Disintegration” or “Horizon of a Red Sea” are instrumentally sound, they lack structurally. “Disintegration” especially suffers from this, with the overwhelming feeling that throughout the three minute track, the song builds towards very little. Even in the context of that three-track run, “Disintegration” through “Horizon of a Red Sea,” the listener has a hard time shaking that not much actually happens, and despite listening through them back-to-back, its hard to actually remember anything about the songs themselves, beyond an annoyance with the outright overuse of the token ambient outro—the second glaring misstep on The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us. Even discounting the bloated introduction and unnecessary interlude (which are both loops of ambient fretwork, noise or both), there is nearly five minutes of “melodic outro” throughout the entire record—about as long or longer than the longest full song—and are disproportionately front loaded, which makes the first half of the record that much more of a slog when combined with the already tedious songwriting that more often than not leaves listeners struggling to remain focused.Things change with “Eulogy” and the songs that follow. While “Eulogy” itself still feels a touch overblown and without much tangible “payoff” when it comes to the song’s actual structure, it serves as an inflection point for the release. “Eve of Calamity” and “An Undying Flame” follow as a one-two punch that essentially saves the entirety of The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us. Sounding something like It Dies Today with beefier riffs and more hectic pacing, these songs are riff-driven monsters that weave into and out of pummeling aggression with outstanding tact. “An Undying Flame” serves as a chief example, punctuating breaks in the flurry of lacerating leads and subtle programming with stuttering breakdowns and harshly spat syllables that keep the listener hooked—but moreover—serve as a relative climax that A Winter’s Remorse build to throughout the song itself.I’m sure that the easy—and oversimplified—takeaway from the article is “A Winter’s Remorse bad because they’re not deathcore anymore,” and I mean, sure, I’ll be the first to mourn their transition out of the genre as one of the relative “pioneers” of the contemporary revival—but that’s not the source of my contention with The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us. A record built on promise by way of solid production, stellar instrumentation and high anticipation falls more than a little short with several songs that lack structure, an edge or a reason to go back and listen again, weighed down further by the felony-level abuse of ambient instrumental introductions, interludes and outros. With the exception of precious few stand-out tracks, The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us can’t help but feel like a step both backwards and in the wrong direction, forcing the listener to hope that whatever release follows it also sees a similar change in direction to something new—or even old.5.5/10For Fans Of: Azshara, It Dies Today, Bleeding Through, Long GoodbyeConnor Welsh