The Jaws of Life Review

In this article, Peter screams in pain about the new Pierce the Veil album The Jaws of Life.

Pierce the Veil, More Like, Pierce the Fail

By: Peter Easterwood

Pierce the Veil (PTV) is an emo-rock band from San Diego, California, formed in 2006 by two brothers Vic, the vocalist and rhythm guitarist, and Mike Fuentes the drummer. After Pierce the Veil’s first album, they gained two other band members: Tony Perry, the lead guitarist, and Jaime Preciado, the bassist. Before the creation of Pierce the Veil, Vic and Mike were a part of another band named Before Today, which broke up in 2006. The name Pierce the Veil was not the first time the phrase popped up in both of the Fuentes’ musical careers. While a part of Before Today, they also named a song “Pierce the Veil”, making it the name of their new band. The brothers had little time to keep the audience Before Today brought them, so they began the creation of Pierce the Veil’s debut album, A Flair for the Dramatic.

PTV’s debut album was released on June 26, 2007. The reception for the album was pretty mild but helped the Before Today fans stay and see where Pierce the Veil would go as a band. A Flair for the Dramatic’s most significant issue is the sloppy production, especially vocally. The background vocals in every song are too loud, to the point where they take the listener’s ears attention and sway from the lead vocalist. With the production, the instrumentals come off a little sloppy, too, but that issue is more forgivable since the base of the band at this point was just the two brothers playing every instrument that was a part of the album.

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A Flair contains 11 songs, but instead of the more punk-esque vocals by Vic, he allows himself to sing with a more feminine voice. A Flair is just a taste of what Pierce the Veil would later become, showing a change in sound compared to Before Today and distancing themselves from the old sound they used. The band took a three-year hiatus to give themselves time to fill out the band, adding Tony Perry and Jaime Preciado in only two years.

The next year, their new album was teased to release, but the date was unknown; on June 22, 2010, Selfish Machines was released. Leading up to the release, Pierce the Veil introduced the album by releasing a single on a very relevant website to today’s youth called MySpace. The single was called “The Boy Who Could Fly”. It would then appear on the album not too long afterward. Selfish Machines is filled with eleven songs, and one interlude, lasting 47 minutes and 11 seconds. Nearly every song is in your face, but there are two that have a slower pace compared to the others; “Stay Away from My Friends” and “Bulletproof Love”. The album, according to the singer Vic Fuentes, is “...a reference to the animal instinct that everyone has and won't admit to exists.” The loud, emo-rock scene was finally gaining traction. With the release of Selfish Machines, Pierce the Veil gained an immense amount of fans, finally putting themselves in a different scene and coming off as a different, more unique band; the uniqueness, however, did not mean they were accepted with open arms. On Album of the Year (an open website that many music nerds can use to spread their opinions), Selfish Machines received a 66 out of 100 on user scores. Many reviews vary in words like “Awful”, “Bad” and, my favorite, “Burn It.” Selfish Machines is nowhere near a perfect album, keeping the same issues as the last album had– the production. The vocals and instrumentals always have a weird fuzzy sound that comes along with them. Whether or not you, the listener, like it, you can not deny that Selfish Machines helped Pierce the Veil gain some die-hard fans.

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The band took another two year hiatus to work on their next album, Collide with the Sky. There were little teasers for Collide with the Sky, but there was one single that hit the emo-rock scene with a wrecking ball. The song is called “King for a Day feat. Kellin Quinn”. As of late, the song itself started trending on the app TikTok, where people just made cringy edits while screaming the song. The main attraction of the song is the mix with Vic and Quinn, both having feminine voices. The collaboration benefitted both parties, since it is now Pierce the Veil’s biggest song and also gave recognition to Quinn’s band Sleeping with Sirens. With their biggest song released, the hype was the highest it has ever been for Pierce the Veil.

On July 17, 2012, they finally released their third studio album, Collide with the Sky. Not only was it a step up production-wise, but it was also a step up lyrically. The album opens with “May These Noises Startle You In Your Sleep”, a transition intro for the song afterward “Hell Above”. That alone helps the listener buckle down and get ready for another in-your-face listen by PTV again. The whole album is filled with heartfelt lyrics and songs, especially one song called “Match in the Water”. During an interview with New Jersey’s alternative newspaper The Aquarian, the interviewer Amanda Ferrante Batista asks Vic, “Your lyrics are special. They’re heartfelt—intense even. From where do you draw inspiration?” Vic replies with “My ex-girlfriend was diagnosed with breast cancer. That was the inspiration for some of the lyrics of “A Match In The Water.” The theme change helped Collide with the Sky be their number-one sold album of all time– still capturing that aggressive sound, while also opening up their hearts with personal issues in the lyrics. All this rambling on about the album makes it seem like it got rave reviews, but on Album of the Year, it got a mild 73 out of 100 score through 299 ratings. With the amount of attention the band got, they took their longest hiatus at the time (four years) to hang out with family, and finally just relax.

The relaxation only lasted two years because, from 2014 to 2015, the band regrouped and started working on their next album, Misadventures. Only this time, there were no singles to tease the album, only social media posts hyping it up. “Traveling, that's what really made the record,” said Vic during an interview with Chad Childers on Loudwire about Misadventures. The album had a different vibe from anything Pierce the Veil has released. It is less in-your-face and calmer. The change in sound helped PTV escape the “corny” pop-punk, and release a meaningful album, continuing the personal lyricism but with a calmer sound. AllMusic (another open website allowing anyone to review albums) also agrees, giving Misadventures a 4 out of 5 star rat James Christopher Monger (a writer for AllMusic) writes, “Misadventures is as ambitious, hook-laden, and spilling over with unrepentant melodrama as anything Pierce the Veil has accomplished to date.” Instead of sticking to what they are good at, Pierce the Veil took a step forward and put themselves into a more alt-emo rock scene, combining calm instrumentals with dark, aggressive lyrics.

Pierce the Veil then went on another hiatus, due to a controversy with the drummer, Mike Fuentes. Not only was Mike the drummer, but he was also a co-writer for the band. After six years, the band finally found a drummer to fill in for them, Third Eye Blind’s Brad Hargreaves. The creation of the album was perfectly timed, with the rise of throwback emo bands growing, and a festival (When We Were Young) helping with that growth , The Jaws of Life had a bunch of hype. Not too long after working on the album, on Sept. 1, 2022, Pierce the Veil released a single called “Pass the Nirvana.” The song dwells on grunge, with basic notes played by both the guitar and bass, while the drums are hit with aggression. It works out well, especially with Vic’s screamo voice spread throughout the chorus. They then released two more singles: “Emergency Contact” (released on Nov. 11, 2022) and “Even When I’m Not With You” (released on Jan. 13, 2023). Less than a month later, on Feb. 11, 2023, Pierce the Veil finally released their long-awaited album, The Jaws of Life.

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The opening track, “Death of an Executioner” helps the listener get ready for the rest of the album– a more fleshed-out, less in-your-face instrumentals album. Not only is the album less aggressive with less banging drums and crazy guitar riffs, Vic’s vocals are more punk-sounding (Green Day-esque). There is a glaring issue with the change in Vic’s vocals, he just does not scream at all in the album. There are some instances (in the background vocals), where he does scream, but that’s about it. Also, do not get me started on the song “Shared Traumas”, probably one of the weirdest switches in sound out of every album I have heard. The weird lofi sounding beat is a complete change from their normal sound, especially since they have never even experimented with this sound before. Of course, the second half of the album is much weaker than the first, with the outro, “12 Fractures” being a poor attempt at a pop-punk song that could make it on the radio.

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For Pierce the Veil, Misadventures was a big step forward for the band. Proving that they are more than an uber-dramatic band, constantly talking about their broken hearts, and sad lives. The same could be said with The Jaws of Life which follows the same experimentality Misadventures had: with “Pass the Nirvana” sounding more grunge than anything they have made, and most of the album being less aggressive and more methodical. Sadly, the experimentation does not work as well, especially in the latter half, downright ruining the sound and flow of the album. The Jaws of Life by Pierce the Veil gets a 5.4/10, if they re-released the album without “12 Fractures” and “Shared Traumas”, the score would be a 7.6/10.

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