Fill up your tank with Apex4X, whose new album, “The Fire Within,” offers a combustible mix of darkwave, industrial rock, and other alternatives. Channeling the spirit of pioneers like Collide, Sneaker Pimps, Metallica, The Cure, Ego Likeness, and Chelsea Wolfe, this 13-song offering plunges listeners into a gripping 47-minute exercise in moody allure that is both haunting and electrifying.
Written in a flurry of creativity after returning from a transformative trip abroad during which Apex4X discovered new cultures, sounds, and emotional clarity, “The Fire Within” is their cathartic expression of metamorphosis. Written in just two weeks, Apex4X’s deeply personal lyrics imbue each song with a confessional, almost cinematic quality.
Ranging from the atmospheric tension of the brooding synth layers and pulsating rhythms intersecting throughout the opening track, "The Whetting," to the magnetic pull of "Meeting in the Middle," propelled by haunting melodies and introspective lyrics, the album evokes a hypnotic marriage of introspection and intensity.
The production balances a fine line between ethereal beauty and unforgiving density, never more so than on tracks like "The Whetting," as soft synth grains conjoin into an industrial maelstrom, giving credence to Apex4X's ability to hop through genres while maintaining their own sound.
“The Fire Within” is an odyssey of sound and emotion, a bold declaration from an artist unafraid to color outside the lines and display fragility. Be it through sonorous shadows, rumbling riffs, or lyrical profundity, this record leaves its mark with echoes of the cathartic journey that led to its inception and a challenge to us all to look for our own fire.