The lineup as of 2022. From left to right: Mike Stringer, Courtney LaPlante, Bill Crook, Zev Rosenberg.
Spiritbox is a Canadian Heavy Metal band from Victoria, British Columbia, founded in 2017 by husband-and-wife duo Mike Stringer and Courtney LaPlante, The band's musical style is eclectic and difficult to pigeonhole, and displays a variety of influences from within the heavy metal genre (mostly Progressive Metal, Groove Metal, Nu Metal, Metalcore and post-metal) as well as electronic, R&B, and pop influences that create an accessible yet technically impressive style.
LaPlante and Stringer were formerly members of the Avant-Garde Metal band Iwrestledabearonce, and have been considering starting a side project as early as 2011. In late 2015, they left, citing a desire to pursue a more personal and creative direction, and began producing demo recordings in their spare time. The two got married in 2016, and shortly after, began investing their time and money into jointly recording material, and in 2017, they announced the launch of Spiritbox as a musical project, releasing a self-titled EP that same year.
The duo would be joined in 2018 by bassist Bill Crook (of Living With Lions fame) and drummer Ryan Loerke, who left in 2020 and was replaced by Zev Rosenberg (stage name Zev Rose), who is twelve years younger than LaPlante. Jason Mageau, who managed Iwrestledabearonce, would return to help LaPlante and Stringer in releasing the band's music through the Pale Chord label (later partnered with Rise Records in 2020), and promoting the band via online means instead of music tours, allowing the band to establish a fanbase with younger, more tech-savvy metalheads.
On September 17, 2021, the band released their highly anticipated debut album, Eternal Blue, to critical acclaim.
Current Lineup:
- Courtney LaPlante – vocals (2016–present)
- Mike Stringer – guitar (2016–present)
- Zev Rose - drums (2020-present, previously a touring member from 2018-2020)
- Josh Gilbert - bass, backing vocals (2023-present, previously a touring member from 2022-2023)
Past Members:
- Ryan Loerke - drums (2017)
- Bill Crook - bass (2018-2022)
Discography:
- Spiritbox (2017)
- Singles Collection (2019)
- Eternal Blue (2021)
- Rotoscope (2022)
- The Fear of Fear (2023)
Curse the tropes down, and when I die you won't pray for me:
- All Drummers Are Animals: Averted with Zev Rose - his drumming style is calm and highly focused, showing little emotion even as he pulls off complex drum patterns.
- Avant-Garde Metal: One of the most respected new bands in the genre as of late. They are known for not only their innovative style that bridges the gap between technical and accessible, but also for embracing emerging music technologies such as digital synthesizers for production, and online distribution/streaming services to promote their music.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: Courtney may very well be the Trope Codifier for this in modern metal. While her screaming is incredibly aggressive, her clean vocals are often described as being some of the most beautiful in the genre.
- Book Ends: The first lyric on the first song and final lyric on the final song on Rotoscope is "shadows".
- Call-Back / Call-Forward: The Fear of Fear has quite a few of these.
- Careful with That Axe:
- "Holy Roller" opens with LaPlante's strident Harsh Vocals cutting through a mumbled spoken word passage.
- The end of "Halcyon".
- The end of "Hysteria". Dear god.
- Concept Album: The Fear of Fear is a concept EP. All the songs have a story arc that links them together, and they all flow into each other.
- Darker and Edgier: The Fear of Fear. Two of the band's heaviest songs to date ("Cellar Door" and "Angel Eyes") are on this EP, and the ambient textures are generally creepier-sounding than on previous records.
- Electronic Music: A key element of the band's sound. Their use of digital synthesizers and programmed drums is a deliberate choice to better embrace the artistic use of new musical technologies.
- Genre-Busting: Spiritbox's style is difficult to pigeonhole and continues to elude description. Alternative Metal, Djent, Metalcore, Nu Metal, post-metal, and Progressive Metal blur together with Electronic Music, R&B, and pop music to the point of sounding highly abstract yet accessible for the average listener.
- Groove Metal: Of the modern, djenty variety. The band has cited Tesseract, Gojira, and Deftones as influences to their style.
- I Am the Band: Spiritbox was originally a studio project by Courtney and Mike. The band creatively still very much operates like this, even with the addition of other full-time members.
- Last Note Nightmare:
- "Halycon". The end is a full-on breakdown, complete with Courtney screaming her face off.
- "Hysteria" is a very beautiful and melodic song... until the end, where it builds up into a very heavy and very low-tuned breakdown.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Courtney LaPlante. Though noticeably toned-down and streamlined in comparison to her previous work, her range of vocal tone and expression is nonetheless just as impressive, and continues to garner praise from music critics. Not only is she able to do powerful, belting cleans like other female vocalists, but she can also incorporate pop-ballad Melismatic Vocals into her style with minimal effort, and just as easily transition to a wide range of Harsh Vocals as needed.
- The Masochism Tango: "Hurt You" is about a mutually abusive relationship complete with oblique references to the Cold War.
- Metal Scream: LaPlante primarily does Type 1 and Type 2 screams.
- Miniscule Rocking: The interlude 10:16 on Spiritbox is only 1 minute and 8 seconds long.
- New Sound Album:
- Eternal Blue is more straightforward-sounding than their previous work. This was a deliberate choice, as the band wanted to write more accessible songs.
- Rotoscope added more nu-metal elements to the band's sound, as well as some industrial elements on the title track.
- The Fear Of Fear brought the band back towards its Progressive Metal roots, while keeping the accessibility of Eternal Blue.
- Nobody Loves the Bassist: Averted.
- While not a Lead Bassist, Bill Crook was nonetheless already known for being already in a band (Living with Lions) when he joined Spiritbox as a permanent member, and he's also a proficient and technical bass player in his own right.
- When Bill decided to leave the band, their replacement for him was Josh Gilbert. Josh had already gained a huge reputation as the former bassist and co-lead vocalist of As I Lay Dying and Wovenwar, and for his production and songwriting work with other artists.
- Nu Metal: A huge influence on the band's sound, and it became more obvious from Eternal Blue onward.
- Post-Metal / Progressive Metal: Whenever they aren't classified as avant-garde or metalcore, they are often this.
- Religion Rant Song: "Holy Roller", of the "Hate the God" variety.
- Scary Musician, Harmless Music: Huge inversion. A bunch of very normal and non-threatening looking guys with a pretty and feminine looking frontwoman who make some often aggressive and often unsettling music with shattering screams.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: Courtney has frequently done this in the studio. Averted after Josh Gilbert joined the band - he frequently does backing vocals live and started doing them in the studio from The Fear of Fear onward.
- Soprano and Gravel: Combined with Melismatic Vocals on the clean side, courtesy of LaPlante.
- Signature Style: An eclectic fusion of extreme metal, post-hardcore, electronic, and pop music that pushes the boundaries of what can be acceptable as "metal", born out of the cutting-edge multi-instrumentalist work of Mike Stringer and the impressively diverse vocal talents of frontwoman Courtney LaPlante.
- Special Guest: Ryo Kinoshita appears in the single version of "Holy Roller", while Eternal Blue includes a feature from Sam Carter of Architects fame in "Yellowjacket".
- Courtney has been a special guest herself on "Contraband" by Make Them Suffer, "The Ride" by Kingdom of Giants, "One Thousand Painful Stings" by The Acacia Strain, and "Shivering" by Illenium.
- Step Up to the Microphone: Josh Gilbert has done this during his tenure as the band's bassist. He now frequently provides backing vocals to Courtney during live shows, and sings lead vocals during the chorus of "Yellowjacket" when Sam Carter isn't available to do it live. He also sung some backing vocals in the studio on The Fear of Fear.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song:
- "We Live in a Strange World" and the title track of Eternal Blue. Both songs are decidedly Lighter and Softer than the band's usual output, with elements of hip-hop and synthwave production and no screamed vocals.
- "Too Close / Too Late" and "Ultraviolet" from The Fear of Fear both have no screamed vocals, and "Ultraviolet" has a similar synthwave-influenced production style to "We Live in a Strange World" from Eternal Blue.
- Surreal Music Video:
- The video for "Holy Roller" is a pastiche of aesthetics lifted straight out of Midsommar and The Blair Witch Project intercut with close-up shots of Courtney LaPlante in full Black Metal garb and screaming the lyrics into the camera.
- The video for "Ultraviolet" only features Courtney, is filmed in a single long shot, features time speeding up and slowing down almost at random and an odd group of people dancing around her and touching her.
- Trope Codifier: Of modern, pop-and-electronic-influenced Avant-Garde Metal.
- Vocal Tag Team: Courtney and Josh, during live shows.
