156/Silence – From A Distance Review: Bigger, Bolder and Unafraid to Break the Rules

There is a point in our conversation with 156/Silence vocalist Jack Murray where I tell him that From A Distance simply feels bigger.

Not necessarily heavier. Not necessarily more aggressive. Bigger.

More cinematic, more atmospheric, more polished and far more willing to stretch beyond the boundaries of what you might traditionally expect from a 156/Silence record.

“That’s what we were going for, for sure,” Murray tells Bigmouth Rock News, crediting producer Josh Schroeder in particular with helping add to the album’s atmosphere and creating something closer to a “cinematic visual experience” than simply another relentlessly heavy record.

That exchange probably sums up From A Distance better than anything else.

Because 156/Silence haven’t sacrificed the chaos that made them such an exciting proposition in the first place. Instead, they’ve built around it.

The follow-up to 2024’s People Watching feels like a band realising that heaviness becomes considerably more effective when you aren’t afraid to contrast it with something else.

There are crushing sections here, certainly, but they’re surrounded by electronics, huge hooks, unsettling ambience, melody and moments that feel deliberately uncomfortable. Rather than constantly attempting to bludgeon the listener, From A Distance knows when to pull you closer before swinging again.

And Murray has clearly placed far greater emphasis on making these songs stick.

Speaking to Bigmouth, he admits that he can be extremely self-critical when writing, but says that this time he deliberately focused on creating more structured choruses with one very straightforward objective: write something catchy enough that it gets stuck in your head.

It works.

That increased accessibility doesn’t mean 156/Silence suddenly sound safe. If anything, From A Distance is interesting because the band seem increasingly uninterested in deciding exactly what they’re supposed to sound like.

Metalcore remains somewhere within their DNA, but it’s no longer a boundary.

There is a distinctly unsettling quality running through the record, and its influences extend well beyond music. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Twin Peaks, Severance and A24 films all entered our conversation when discussing the world surrounding From A Distance. Murray describes the band’s visual approach as chasing a “wacky spooky vibe” and wanting to leave people with the same feeling certain films can produce: wondering what the hell they just experienced.

That mentality bleeds naturally into the music.

From A Distance is positioned as a thematic companion to People Watching, but the clue is quite literally in the title.

“People watching from a distance,” Murray explains.

Where its predecessor observed the tension immediately surrounding the band, this record takes several steps backwards and looks at the stranger aspects of modern life from a wider perspective.

Proxy Idols is one of the clearest examples.

Celebrity worship, parasocial relationships and our increasingly bizarre relationship with algorithms and online personalities all feed into it. Murray talks about how strange it is to become obsessed with somebody who doesn’t even know you exist, while questioning the endless cycle in which influencers are pushed in front of us before disappearing and being replaced by someone else.

It’s an idea that feels particularly well suited to 2026.

Then there’s Swept From Under, which ventures somewhere considerably darker.

Murray explains that the track explores the phenomenon often referred to as “the call of the void”—those sudden intrusive thoughts that can arrive despite someone not necessarily feeling depressed, self-destructive or even particularly unhappy.

“An intrusive thought can come into your head and it’s like, ‘Whoa, where’d that come from?’” he explains.

It’s these ideas that give From A Distance substance beneath its production.

And then there’s Collateral.

Featuring Tony Cavaleri of Crippling Alcoholism, it’s one of the album’s real standouts—and apparently we aren’t alone in thinking so. Murray tells us that it has effectively become one of the collective favourites within 156/Silence themselves, particularly when it comes to playing it.

Across the record, that willingness to experiment is arguably the biggest takeaway.

There will inevitably be listeners who prefer the more immediate brutality of earlier 156/Silence material. From A Distance isn’t always interested in delivering instant gratification, and some of its more atmospheric ideas require a little more patience.

But that’s also what makes it such an important record for the band.

During our interview, I mention just how much is happening musically here: hard rock, synth-heavy experimentation, enormous hooks and flashes of the band’s metalcore roots.

Murray’s response feels almost like a mission statement for whatever 156/Silence become next.

“This album gives us the opportunity to really do whatever the hell we want.”

He even reveals that additional songs were recorded during these sessions which push the electronic experimentation further and are likely to emerge next year.

That’s an exciting prospect because From A Distance sounds less like 156/Silence arriving at their final destination and more like a band suddenly discovering how many different directions are available to them.

The aggression is still there.

The metalcore foundations are still there.

But now there’s considerably more built on top of them.

156/Silence have made a record that’s bigger without simply making everything louder; more accessible without sanding away its strange edges; and more ambitious without completely disconnecting from the band that made People Watching.

Most importantly, it leaves you genuinely unsure what their next record might sound like.

Judging by From A Distance, that’s exactly where 156/Silence want to be.

BIGMOUTH RATING: 8.5/10

From A Distance is out now via Pure Noise Records.

Bigmouth Rock News’ full interview with 156/Silence vocalist and lyricist Jack Murray premieres later today on the Bigmouth Rock News YouTube channel, where we talk From A Distance, the band’s horror influences, the state of modern metalcore, touring, his dream dinner party and plenty more.