Polyphia have always been a somewhat polarising group, but ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ is the first release of theirs crossing the line into genuine controversy: fans and critics alike were quick to shun the new style of a single like ‘POWER IN THE BLOOD,’ and it’s not hard to see why. In some ways, Gen Z’s answer to Christian rock feels like the inevitable next step for Henson and company, especially coming off of the huge success of 2022’s ‘Remember That You Will Die.’ That knowledge won’t cure this pounding headache though.

You simply cannot talk about this record without confronting its production, even if that’s something we’d prefer to keep at arm’s length— good lord Polyphia, why are you so set on dissolving our speakers with this one? The group have never made so grandiose an entrance as they do on ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT,’ a cut just as garish as the album’s cover: you would think the scores of choir the band have thrown into the mix would be more than enough bombast, but no, ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ would simply not be complete without a low-end to put Kim Kardashian to shame. This is an exhausting listen front-to-back, one that’ll have you begging to see the pearly gates before it’s even halfway done. We can indeed feel the chugging down-tuned guitars, rumbling 808s and harsh drum tones of single ‘CAN YOU FEEL IT,’ much to our chagrin.

To be perfectly clear, ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ is not the pivot into deafening djent you might be expecting from that description: Polyphia are learning the hard way that volume and heaviness are not one and the same, and it’s their listeners who’re paying the price in hearing aids. If Henson and company are committing to a direction here, their latest album borders on instrumental hip-hop (y’know, if it were built solely from samples of TikTok thirst-trap edits and unhinged religious rants), such is the level of artificiality we’re talking about. A number like ‘J-BOMB,’ in particular, is built from such obvious drum loops and lead melodies that is really does seem designed for social media. How disheartening, then, that the cut ends up being one of the more memorable on the record— it’s a little less wince-worthy than ‘POWER IN THE BLOOD,’ at the very least.

The central issue is, of course, that these twelve tracks are genuinely arduous to sit through on presentation alone, but Polyphia’s approach here actually manages to shoot them in the foot in a far more insidious way than that. Here, in amongst songs full of so many doctored takes and artificial sound bytes, it becomes almost impossible to actually appreciate the musicianship that put the band on the map: at times, it feels like the group are intentionally distancing themselves from their hyper-technical reputation. Regardless of what you may think of a cut like ‘Playing God,’ the guitar work on display there is absolutely dazzling— you cannot say the same for 2026’s ‘SCREWTAPE,’ even when Henson and LePage are clearly still pulling off some ridiculous feats of performance. It’s for this reason that ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ has us questioning whether the group know why people listened to them at all.

Buried deep, deep within this kaleidoscopic mess, Polyphia’s penchant for melody can still be heard— ‘WITH EYES TO SEE’ is home to some infectious moments scattered in-amongst the auditory chaos, and the clean guitars on ‘THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO’ are a solid idea we’ve seen the band build great tracks from in the past— but you really do have to dig to find it. There are few standouts to speak of here not because every song is horrible in concept, but because they’ve all been taken out the back and slaughtered in their execution. The brain rot metal elites are shunning the very talents they’ve been trading on ever since 2014’s ‘Muse,’ and they haven’t committed nearly hard enough to the style of instrumental hip-hop to excel there either. The prophetic ramblings of ‘DENY THE FLESH’ simply aren’t making up the difference.

It’s ironic that this album, which speaks freely on themes of religion and the divine, is so godless: the absolute extremity of ‘DEVIL GET BEHIND ME’ will have you questioning what deity could possibly allow suffering such as this to exist. If Polyphia play any of this material live, in a more conventional format, then perhaps (and a big emphasis on the ‘perhaps’) these songs could have some merit to them. In the studio, the title ‘BE NOT AFRAID’ sounds like a desperate plea from a group who’ve lost their way.