Dying Wish aren’t precious about labels. Hardcore lifers, metalcore maestros, political rabble-rousers -- all of these tags apply to the Portland quintet, who’ve become a fixture of the heavy music landscape without sacrificing the DIY ethos instilled upon them as teens. After gaining underground notoriety in the late 2010s, Dying Wish emerged from the pandemic with two battering albums, Fragments of a Bitter Memory (2021) and Symptoms of Survival (2023), that catapulted them to the forefront of today’s thriving hardcore scene. Live, their crowds are rambunctious no matter who they tour with, whether it’s hardcore knuckle-draggers Pain of Truth or metalcore bigwigs Spiritbox.

Throughout the last few years of constant road-dogging and consistent artistic development, the members of Dying Wish -- frontperson Emma Boster, guitarists Pedro Carrillo and Sam Reynolds, bassist Jon Mackey, and drummer Jeff Yambra -- have also grown immensely as people. Their bracing third album, Flesh Stays Together, reflects not just their “hardened” worldview, as Boster puts it, but also their bold confidence as songwriters who aren’t afraid to shake up tired metalcore formulas.

With Flesh Stays Together, Dying Wish aren’t offering listeners a breather from the daily torment -- they're pulling the shrink wrap even tighter. If only all metal albums dared to be this physically, emotionally, conceptually provocative.