I spent much of the summer of 2020 languishing in my bedroom. There, I discovered new/new-to-me music at an unprecedented rate. Bat Out of Hell, Mana, Endarkenment, The Pagan Manifesto—escapism or catharsis, I needed it all. But one record stands out to me as the Covid album, and that’s Protest the Hero’s Palimpsest. A buckwild interrogation of the American Dream through historical reinterpretation via orchestral progressive metalcore, it took me away from the present moment while still working out the societal demons and frustrations that surrounded me. It’s dope. 2020 AOTY. Six years later, the Canucks are back, bearing their first independent release Within. With the perennial lineup of singer Rody Walker and guitarists Luke Hoskin and Tim MacMiller, joined by session bassist Cameron McLellan and drummer Nathan Bulla, can Protest the Hero capture the zeitgeist as they did back in those dark times?
Would you believe that Within is another frenetically bombastic opus of proggy, punky goodness? Well, you’d better! Protest the Hero haven’t skipped a beat when it comes to controlled chaos, slathering Within with winding, propulsive vocal runs, drum fills, and guitar tweedily-dweedilies. Echoes of Palimpsest’s symphonic grandeur remain in cuts like “Liberty Spike” and “Mouthpiece,” but Protest the Hero on Within take that grandiosity and hone it into a sharper, punkier blitz on “Fishhook” and “The Orchard,” recalling Rise Against or Propagandhi to me. But Protest the Hero also relishes in unadulterated progressive metal, bouncing around ridiculous rhythms on closer “The Mariner” and asking on “Grandfather’s Axe” what it’d sound like if At the Drive-In and Faith No More jammed over a Testament riff. Interludes “i. above” and “ii. below” offer brief but crucial respite, as Within has a ton to say and licks to play and only thirty-nine minutes to do so. Through Within, Protest the Hero take yet another massive, victorious step in their sonic evolution.
What sticks with me after every listen of Within is how gobsmackingly beautiful it sounds. Protest the Hero have long known how to tie heartstring-tugging melody into their compositions,1 but Within is exceptional even by their own standards. For how hectic the guitar runs on “Grandfather’s Axe” and “The Orchard” are, they still manage to raise goosebumps by their bespoke melodicism. At the core of Protest the Hero’s exquisiteness is Walker’s emotive vocals. Some may find his deliveries too eclectic, injecting enough bizarre inflections and hybrid clean-harsh lines for the average System of a Down song, but there’s no doubting the talent and heartfelt power behind his voice. Like on Palimpsest, Protest the Hero can send a song home in truly hair-raising fashion on Within, like in the fist-pumping conclusion of “Mouthpiece,” the chest-beating lamentations of “The Orchard,”2 or the emotionally-charged apex of “The Mariner.” In these climactic moments, Protest the Hero’s melodic sensibilities shine brightest.
Crucially, Within’s jitteriness and elegance are all in service to its lyrics and themes. Playing off the axiom of “As within, so without,” Protest the Hero explore how one’s outer world shapes one’s inner world. Songs on Within expound on this idea by existing in concert with each other. “Mouthpiece” proudly beats the “No War but Class War” drum while follow-up “Fishhook” details the speaker’s strident relationship with his crotchety old neighbor, complicating that call to unity. “Grandfather’s Axe” and “The Orchard” both deal with nostalgia, with the former seemingly about clinging to the past for personal identity3 while the latter wrestles with communal legacies being erased by capital greed. Finally, the final duo highlights the vitality of community for personal support and meaning; “Liberty Spike” sees what happens when someone is deprived of it, while “The Mariner” shows what happens when it saves someone. Every victory, every tragedy, every aching and bleeding heart Protest the Hero have to offer are in service to these ideas on Within. And man, it works.
I fell in love with Protest the Hero when it seemed society was dying. Within arrives to help remind me that Man’s Better Nature may one day win out. Within may not be as grand or thematically poignant as Palimpsest, but it’s leaner, more personal, and just as brazenly weird and charmingly earnest as Protest the Hero has ever been. Within can make you mad if you let it. It can make you weep internally and, if you’re given to that sort of thing, externally, too. Now go hug your mothers and quit being a dick to your neighbors!
Rating: Great!
DR: 74 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps MP3
Label: Independent
Websites: protestthehero.ca | facebook.com/protestthehero | protestthehero.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2026
Samguineous Maximus
Even for the largest artists in a particular subgenre, music is always a fight to maintain. Bands aren’t so much static guarantees as they are constant negotiations between careers, families, artistic stagnation, diminishing returns, and ever-present global enshittification. Protest the Hero is a band that understands this better than most, as the Canadian prog-metallers have endured significant stylistic and personnel changes over their 20+ year career. Their evolution has remained compelling, from the Dostoyevsky-inspired brashness of debut Kezia to the nautical expanse of Pacific Myth, but 2020’s Palimpsest represents their ultimate apotheosis. That record found Rody Walker holding a grim mirror to modern America, using vignettes from the nation’s past to illuminate its present calamities, while Luke Hoskin’s compositions finally gave those ideas the space and gravitas they demanded, bolstered by gorgeous orchestration. It felt like the culmination of the band’s musical evolution and remains one of my favorite albums of all time. Six years later, Within arrives with enormous shoes to fill. Despite another apparent personnel shift, it was reportedly composed much like its predecessor. So, how does it measure up—not only to Palimpsest, but to the rest of their formidable discography?
Within doesn’t follow directly in the sonic footsteps of its immediate predecessor; instead, it presents an awe-inspiring amalgamation of the band’s prior efforts, informed by the songwriting lessons showcased on Palimpsest. Protest the Hero still sound unmistakably like themselves, providing that signature blend of sugar-rush, major key energy, maximalist guitar pyrotechnics, and sneering operatic vocals resulting in their trademark punk-driven progressive metalcore. These songs mostly split the difference between the passion-forward, chaotic post-hardcore of Volition and the more considered songwriting acrobatics of Pacific Myth, then drape the whole thing in Palimpsest’s cinematic nuance—albeit with subtler, less telegraphed versions of that record’s customary third-quarter pullbacks. Across six proper tracks and two orchestral interludes, the band pinballs between ADHD-brain guitar catnip, absurdly sticky melodic choruses, and lyrical climaxes that detonate with undeniable pathos. What’s most impressive is how deftly PtH weaves these moments into cohesive compositions. The tracklist contains clear sonic distinctions, from gang-vocal-fueled punk onslaughts (“Grandfather’s Axe”) to wide-open, hook-driven expanses (“The Orchard”), yet each song pivots so naturally between contrasting sections that, even at peak instrumental maximalism, the result feels immediately listenable rather than merely “look-at-me” impressive.
It’s a given that the performances on this thing would be monstrous, but where PtH always excels is using their absurd technicality to augment the thematic push and pull of their compositions. Luke Hoskin’s insane guitar theatrics5 lend a sense of urgency and immediacy to a song like “Mouthpiece,” where intense single-note runs and grandiose tapping loops bring serious gravitas to an anthem decrying political division. Elsewhere, clipped jazz chords underscore the hopeful wistfulness of “The Orchard.” Hoskin remains a master of layering complex, interlocking guitar melodies and punctuating them with orchestral bursts, and the way every element coalesces around massive, show-stopping peaks—most notably during the climax of progtastic Haken-flecked closer “The Mariner”—never fails to sound both beautifully consonant and utterly jaw-dropping. On the kit, newcomer Nathan Bulla delivers an energetic performance rooted in punk beats, filling his ass off in close step with the strings and giving a classic, driving energy to cuts like the Propaghandi-laced “Fishhook.” All of this sets the stage for Rody Walker’s most confident vocal showing yet. He brings the same endlessly charismatic, sky-scraping voice we love him for, but varies his approach to meet each scintillating line, shifting fluidly between expressive, choked inflections, death growls, and rapid-fire delivery while sounding utterly earnest at every turn.
As its title suggests, Within is an album of personal reflection, with Walker using each song to examine both his own place and Protest the Hero’s place in a world where everything personal, including art and music, feels increasingly threatened by an uncaring, ever-worsening political reality. Walker has always worn his heart on his sleeve as a lyricist, and some listeners may find his directness a little much6, but given the deeply personal nature of this material, I’ll be damned if it isn’t some of the most hopelessly honest and immediately moving music I’ve heard all year. A powerful narrative and thematic current runs through the record as its focus shifts from explicitly political material (“Mouthpiece,” “Fishhook”) to the intersections of artistic legacy, imagined pasts, and nostalgic longing (“Grandfather’s Axe,” “The Orchard”), before arriving at metaphorical loss and the acceptance of one’s place in the world (“Liberty Spike,” “The Mariner”). Several nods to earlier PtH works deepen that reflection, from recurring water imagery recalling Pacific Myth to “The Mariner” directly reprising a melody from Palimpsest’s “The Migrant Mother.” Paired with the supremely effective music, these threads elevate Within into a mature career retrospective: a conscious attempt to confront the band’s legacy, decide what remains meaningful, and make peace with where it now stands.
Within is a very different Protest the Hero record from Palimpsest, but it is no less stunning, musically or thematically. On my first few listens, I wasn’t immediately sold on the more direct subject matter, shorter runtime, or less cinematic approach. With time, however, it has revealed itself as another brilliant jewel in the band’s already gilded crown; the affirmation of and justification of a continued legacy. This is an album that just feels like sheer catharsis. The kind that catches you off guard, works its way into your shower-singing rotation, and somehow leaves you misty-eyed after the twentieth spin.7 Within is a special record, one that repeatedly hammers the “big feels” button while sounding like impossibly earnest tech death for the beardless. Do yourself a favor and hear it.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
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