Album Review: Employed To Serve – Fallen Star (Spinefarm Records)

Leading lights of British metal, Employed To Serve, are back with their giant new album, ‘Fallen Star’. Out on April 25th, 2025, via Spinefarm Records.

Sounding more comfortable in their own skin than ever, Employed to Serve return with their biggest, sharpest, and most accessible record to date. Which might sound absurd when you hear the opening track, Treachery, an absolute manic and mutilating heavy beast. However, rest assured, being fast and heavy is just one part of Employed to Serve and the make up of this album. Employed to Serve have big ideas here, having grown as a band over the years, and having developed the skills to make them work.

Though that’s not to suggest they were slumming it before. I love a ton of what they have done up to this point, it’s just that this album feels more ‘complete’.

Following my face being melted off with the aforementioned Treachery (the vocals are brutal), the title track arrives with a stronger showcase of that accessibility I was talking about. Clean vocals and powerful melody, with a very memorable message (around burnout and witnessing someone close to you push themselves too hard). It, and the following Atonement, are bright examples of the album’s more refined melody and metal mix. Who else could have Will Ramos (Lorna Shore) guesting, but doing clean singing?

That’s very cool, but the fact that it, by in large, is a heavy and aggressive metal banger with an abrasive edge is what really makes it special.

The album’s best track (in my opinion) comes next. It’s Break Me Down and its message hits home. Talking about grief and how there is simply no guide to it. It affects everyone differently, and everyone will experience it in some way. My father is in a care home, slowly dying from dementia, and while I’ve made my peace with that, it’s like the grieving process is on hold. It’s just a matter of time, but right now it’s like being in limbo. Does that make sense? It’s hard to describe and this review isn’t for that. I just wanted to explain why this track hits different for me and that it showcases the continuing evolution of the band so well, makes it all the better.

The keyboard melody is haunting, the clean singing is spine-tingling, the heaviness will rattle the brain, and the chorus is so powerful. I love it.

A tough track to follow, but happily, Familiar Pain goes the savage route, hitting a metalcore infused high with a catchy chorus and crushing bones with a big breakdown. Before Brother, Stand Beside Me delivers chunky riffing and inventive harmony, and Now Thy Kingdom Come delivers the personification of aggression, especially with its varied tempos.

It’s time for some guests though, and what stellar guests they are. Alongside Will Ramos’ earlier incredible efforts, we have the multifaceted talents of Svalbard’s Serena Cherry who adds so much to a punchy statement of a track, Last Laugh. Another absolute belter with some rocking imagination, but, unsurprisingly, it is the vocals of this one that stands out. Then there is the (always) impressive Jesse Leech of Killswitch Engage who s Employed to Serve on the rousing Whose Side Are You On? The freaking chorus slays, but that ‘two-step’ inspired part at the end might be where it’s at on this banger track.

The sound of a band having found themselves and throwing their all into delivering the absolute best of themselves. Proving to be mightily creative right up to the end as The Renegades and From This Day Forward both the five-minute mark. The former, following a cool guitar-focused intro, is an explosive display of energy, Employed to Serve filled with vitality and finding new heights of heaviness to scale, while never sacrificing the ‘catchier’ side of themselves. Here, we have what is arguably the lightest chorus so far, but it is complimented by some raging rhythms, and hardcore-inspired intensity. Whereas the latter can be summed up simply as a track that goes very, very hard. Classic Employed to Serve, and a brilliant way for the album to wrap up.

I love it. Employed to Serve have bettered everything they’ve done before by focusing on what makes them so good. It’s less about experimentation here (even though there is notable moments), and more about refinement, which results in a record that feels complete. This will go down as their defining moment (for now at least) and so many people are going to connect to it.

Employed to Serve – Fallen Star Track Listing:

1. Treachery
2. Fallen Star
3. Atonement (feat. Will Ramos)
4. Breaks Me Down
5. Familiar Pain
6. Brother, Stand Beside Me
7. Now Thy Kingdom Come
8. Last Laugh (feat. Serena Cherry)
9. Whose Side Are You On? (feat. Jesse Leach)
10. The Renegades
11. From This Day Forward

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