IN THIS MOMENT

IN THIS MOMENT have never, ever played it safe. Since forming in 2005, the band has built an entire world around its music, with Maria Brink at the center of it all. The band's new album, "Witch", feels like another chapter in that story, but there's something extra exciting about the way the band approaches this one. It's heavy, theatrical and unapologetically dramatic, but it's also adventurous, as is often the case with their music.

Rather than simply repeating the sound that made IN THIS MOMENT successful, "Witch" keeps pulling in different directions. Some songs hit with the familiar style fans will expect, while others wander into more atmospheric and unexpected territory.

One of the biggest highlights is "I Want To Believe", featuring Rory Rodriguez of DAYSEEKER. It's a beautiful, anthemic song built around yearning and vulnerability, and there's something wonderfully raw about it. The collaboration works because Brink and Rodriguez bring different emotional textures to the track without either one overpowering the other. It recalls some of the earlier emotion of IN THIS MOMENT while still sounding like a band that's grown a lot since those early days.

Then there's the cover of PINK FLOYD's "Another Brick In The Wall", featuring Kat Von D. Here, IN THIS MOMENT take the familiar song and drag it somewhere much heavier, adding screaming and a completely different sense of menace. It's one of those covers where you can immediately recognize the original, but at the same time, it doesn't sound like it. "Wrapped Around Your Finger" takes another left turn. THE POLICE classic gets an atmospheric, experimental treatment that lets IN THIS MOMENT play with space and mood rather than simply turning the song into a heavier version of itself. "Crawl" is another standout and really one of the most immediately accessible tracks on the record. It's heavy, catchy and built with the kind of strong melodic pull that could easily find a home on rock radio. There's plenty of muscle behind it, and this song sounds the most like IN THIS MOMENT's most recent catalog.

On "Witch", IN THIS MOMENT have figured out how to balance heaviness with melody and experimentation with songs that stick. With more than two billion global streams, a gold-certified album, multiple gold and platinum singles and three Top 25 albums on the Billboard 200, IN THIS MOMENT have long since established themselves as one of modern heavy music's defining acts. "Witch" just goes one step further.