Release Date June 19th, 2026
Format CD/Digital
Genre Heavy Metal
Origin United States
Fear Equation began in Pittsburgh in 2019 as Brandon DeLanzo’s progressive-heavy metal project. DeLanzo handles vocals, guitars, and bass, and wrote all music and lyrics for “Victims Of The Future”. The band expands through regular collaborators. Tom Gaffron contributes lead and backing vocals along with programmed drums, Adam Kephart adds keyboards, backing vocals, and production, and Justin Fantuzzo appears on drums. Guest backing vocals come from Johanna Murock and Melissa Treas. This creator led setup leaves DeLanzo in charge of the writing while different voices enter at selected points.
Fear Equation draws from traditional heavy metal, thrash, progressive metal, doom, and melancholic rock. Evergrey, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Opeth are obvious influences, especially in the galloping riffs, extended compositions, dark melodic turns, and contrasting vocal styles. Its music remains rooted in classic metal craft, expanded through progressive arrangements and a colder emotional outlook.
“Victims Of The Future” is the band’s debut full length, running forty minutes across six tracks. Adam Kephart produced, mixed, and mastered the album at Second Guest Studios. The mix places the guitars at the front, with the bass
reinforcing their lower edge, keyboards widening the darker sections, and layered vocals expanding the choruses. Separation between the parts is effective, and the riffs retain their edge.
Programmed drums introduce a mechanical seam, since certain attacks arrive with uniform timing and limited dynamic variation. The guitar writing shifts between traditional metal gallops, thrash accents, harmonized leads, restrained doom colors, and broader progressive movements. Longer compositions contain the most ambitious construction, although several transitions continue after their tension has peaked.
Some hooks also lean close to the cited influences, leaving parts of the album less distinct than intended. The material gains character when melancholic melodies are placed against thrash aggression and darker chord work. Lyrically, DeLanzo focuses on alienation, emotional vacancy, lost time, replacement, and people trapped by the consequences of their choices. The language is personal and plain, though certain lines name the emotion before developing an image, reducing their sting.
DeLanzo and Gaffron provide useful vocal contrast, with backing voices adding scale to important refrains. The singing is earnest and expressive, occasionally strained in the higher registers. Several riffs and transitions remain in place one turn too long, slowing momentum during the second half. The final result is a respectable debut, ambitious in scale, melodic at heart, and heavy enough to hold attention. The songwriting has substance, dark atmosphere, and defined direction.
|7.5
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