Eternal heavy metal underdogs Armored Saint are back in the limelight again with 9th album, Emotion Factory Reset. Yep, that’s a pretty crappy title, and the album art has zero to do with said crappy title, but whatever. It’s the music that matters, and I absolutely wore out their 2020 effort Punching the Sky. It ended up as my number 2 album of that year, and in hindsight, it should have been number one. It was especially cool to see these ancient vets crafting one of their best albums so late in their career, and because they’ve always been so easy to root for since the early 80s, I did and still do. While I hoped for the same magic to continue here, I’m realistic enough to know that topping Punching the Sky was going to be a major uphill struggle. Instead of trying to redo the last album, Emotion Factory Reset finds the Saint a bit less fiery and adrenalized, with much of the material more in line with a classic L.A. hard rock sound and safe dad rock than actual heavy metal. It’s still recognizably Armored Saint, but it doesn’t hit with anywhere near the same impact and force as their last one did. Getting olde is a bitch. I should know since I’m fookin’ ancient.
The album opens promisingly with lead single “Close to the Bone.” It’s close in sound and style to what you’d expect from these guys, teeming with metal-meets-hard-rock energy. It could have fit on their early albums as well as their last 2 and it’s a legitimately badass tune. John Bush sounds great as always, and the guitars shred and riff all over the place. It reminds a lot of “Missile to Gun” off Punching and that’s a good place to be. It even has a stanza that reeks of Voivod, which no one saw coming. Unfortunately, this is the album’s high-water mark, which quickly becomes apparent. There are scattered other noteworthy moments like the aggressive “Hit a Moonshot,” which brings back some of the youthful vitality from the 80s, and closer “Epilogue” also features the more reliably rowdy Saint sound with a coolness factor absent for much of the album. Also worth mentioning is “Buckshot,” which is a weird mixture of grunge and radio rock, like a fusion of Live and early ’90s Pearl Jam. It has a slick, laid-back charm, and it would make for good summer beer-drinking music on the back deck with your idiot friends.
The rest of Emotion Factory Reset offers inoffensive, safe dad rock like “Every Man-Any Man,” and “Not on Your Life, but the drop in memorability and impact from the god stuff is stark. Worse, these kinds of tunes are intermixed with less lively and much more generic rockers like “Compromise” and “It’s a Buzzkill,” which hit like sub-par Aerosmith filler. That means you get roughly half an album’s worth of quality Armored Saint music with a lot of half-baked, underwhelming padding duct-taped between the keepers. It ends up feeling like another version of their 2010 La Raza outing, which few want or need.
The individual performances are all fine, with John Bush being his usual charismatic frontman, and he makes the album a better listen than it would be otherwise. Phil Sandoval and Jeff Duncan supply some interesting and occasionally badass riffs and harmonies, and a few choice moments that make me remember why I’ve stuck with the band through most of my life. But these highlights are dampened by too many tracks that feel like phoned-in radio rock without much soul or grit. That’s not why I come to the Armored Saint parade, though I get that folks mellow with age.
It’s unpleasant to report that Emotion Factory Reset is such a drop-off from Punching the Sky, but here we are. I’ll take the good stuff to put on my Armored Saint playlist and move on from these parts. I still love these guys, and I’ll always support them, but I definitely hope for a rebound next time out. The Saint still marches, just not as fast or as far as it used to. Circle of life.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: armoredsaint.com |armoredsaint.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/thearmoredsaint | instagram.com/thearmoredsaint
Releases Worldwide: May 22nd, 2026
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