Ethereal Metal

Ryan Murray | Co-Owner | Chief Editor | Contributor | Photographer

r.m.music84@gmail.com

There’s a moment on Mass Hysteria when you realize PLUSH has entered a different room entirely.

It isn’t subtle. It isn’t gradual. And for anyone who has followed the band’s evolution, it may even prompt the immediate reaction of, Wait… is this PLUSH? 🔥

Released today, Friday, September 18, via Pavement Entertainment, Mass Hysteria is PLUSH at their finest and, without question, their fiercest era yet. The band’s newest record takes the melodic foundation, commanding vocals, enormous hooks, and musicianship that have defined PLUSH and pushes them into considerably heavier territory. The result is an album that feels more volatile, more aggressive, and more willing to get downright brutal when the song demands it.

This is still PLUSH. But this is PLUSH with considerably less restraint.

The album gets moving with Animalistic, the lead single released August 14, and it immediately establishes the record’s muscular direction. There’s an urgency running through the track that feels representative of the album as a whole. The guitars carry considerably more weight, the rhythm section hits harder, and the vocals maintain that unmistakable PLUSH combination of power and melody.

Then comes the title track.

Mass Hysteria is where the album really announces what it intends to be.

The opening moments can genuinely make you wonder if you’ve accidentally started another band. The sonic shift is that pronounced. There’s a darker, heavier edge to the instrumentation, and the song carries a sense of controlled chaos that perfectly suits its title. PLUSH aren’t abandoning melody here; they’re weaponizing it. The contrast between the band’s vocal identity and the sheer weight surrounding it makes Mass Hysteria one of the album’s defining moments.

And then PLUSH take things even further.

Drain Me continues the record’s darker momentum before Bleed Me Out completely changes the temperature of the room.

This is arguably the band’s most volatile track to date.

The breakdowns are absolutely insane, and the song introduces a level of aggression that would have been difficult to predict from PLUSH’s earlier material. And then comes the moment that makes you stop and think, Wait, what?!

Metal growls.

Yes. PLUSH. Metal growls.

It isn’t some gimmick dropped into the middle of the record for shock value, either. It fits within the escalating intensity of the song and reinforces just how far the band is willing to push themselves on Mass Hysteria. The percussion follows suit, pounding through the track with the kind of double-kick intensity that gives the breakdowns their physical impact.

Or, as Faith joked during my recent in-person interview with PLUSH in Newburgh, maybe we’re talking triple-kick pedals at this point. 😅

That sense of personality matters, because despite the heavier material, Mass Hysteria never feels like PLUSH is trying to prove something. The band sounds like they’re having fun exploring how heavy they can actually get.

Open Your Heart provides another essential change in pace, built around an infectious melody that gets under your skin quickly. Formica’s delivery of “Open your heart to me!” becomes one of those instantly memorable vocal moments, balancing the heavier tendencies of the surrounding material with the kind of hook PLUSH have always understood exceptionally well.

That balance becomes one of the album’s greatest strengths.

Because Mass Hysteria isn’t twelve songs of relentless sonic punishment.

Be Real, Free Again, and A Better Place bring the record back toward a mid-tempo approach, but none of them feel like filler or momentum killers. Instead, they give the album room to breathe while continuing to showcase what makes PLUSH such a compelling vocal-driven rock band.

The vocal passages throughout these tracks are particularly strong, with the instrumentation providing plenty of room for the band’s individual personalities to come through. There is still an enormous amount of energy in these songs; it simply arrives differently.

That’s an important distinction.

PLUSH have never needed to make every song heavy to make an album hit hard. Sometimes the strongest impact comes from pulling back into more intimate moments just enough to make the next eruption feel even bigger.

Mass Hysteria understands that dynamic.

Where Is My Mind continues that exploration, while Another Reason digs into betrayal and the darker emotional territory that runs throughout portions of the record. The lyric “Cuz your betrayal is something evil, it’s something I can’t take” captures that feeling perfectly. There’s anger here, but it’s an anger rooted in something personal rather than manufactured.

That emotional intensity is one of the threads holding the album together.

Even when the guitars become crushing and the rhythm section becomes punishing, there is always an emotional center underneath the noise. PLUSH aren’t simply making heavier music for the sake of making heavier music. The weight has purpose.

Severance, written by Suppa, adds another dimension to the album and further demonstrates the songwriting depth within the band. It’s another example of how Mass Hysteria isn’t confined to one particular sonic lane. The album moves between aggression, melody, tension, vulnerability, and sheer force without losing its identity.

And then there’s Releasing Everything.

As the closing track, it feels appropriately intense and almost brooding, carrying the weight of everything that came before it. Rather than ending the album with one final explosive exclamation point, PLUSH leave things hanging in a darker, more reflective space.

It’s a fitting conclusion to a record that spends much of its runtime pushing against boundaries.

What makes Mass Hysteria work so well is that PLUSH don’t sound like they’re attempting to become someone else. The band’s identity remains intact through the heavier guitars, crushing breakdowns, aggressive vocal moments, and increasingly ferocious rhythm section.

They’re simply revealing another side of it.

And that may ultimately be the most exciting part of this era.

The PLUSH of Mass Hysteria sounds confident enough to experiment, confident enough to get uncomfortable, and confident enough to let the songs become genuinely heavy when they need to. The result is an album that can move from an infectious melodic passage directly into a devastating breakdown without feeling like two completely different bands.

That versatility is impressive.

So is the fact that the band’s chemistry remains at the center of everything.

There is a sense throughout Mass Hysteria that PLUSH have found an even larger space to operate in. The melodies are still there. The hooks are still there. The vocal performances remain a defining feature. But surrounding all of that is a newfound willingness to embrace the rage.

And they embrace it hard.

Mass Hysteria is PLUSH at their heaviest, most rage-filled, and most unapologetically aggressive — a record that doesn’t ask permission before kicking the door in.

For a band that has already established a recognizable sound, taking that sound somewhere considerably heavier can be a dangerous move. PLUSH make it feel natural.

Mass Hysteria isn’t simply a heavier PLUSH record. It’s a statement that the band has considerably more left to unleash. And judging by what they’ve unleashed here, that door is only getting wider.

VERDICT: 4.5/5