Hopesfall is an American

post-hardcore Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like post-punk, the term has been ...

band from

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, formed in 1998. They are currently signed to

Equal Vision Records Equal Vision Records is an independent record label based in Albany, New York. It was founded in the early 1990s by Ray Cappo, singer for the punk bands Youth of Today, Shelter, and Better Than a Thousand. The label originally existed solely to ...

. The band dissolved in 2008 after all members, with the exception of singer Jay Forrest, left the band. Following this, the lineup of the band's first two albums got together temporarily and played reunion shows in 2011. The band finally reformed with the majority of their last album's members and original drummer Adam Morgan in 2016 with a new label Equal Vision Records. '' Arbiter'' was released on July 13, 2018.

History

''The Frailty of Words'' and ''No Wings to Speak Of EP'' (1998–2001)

Hopesfall (stylized as ''.hopesfall.'') began as a

Christian hardcore Christian hardcore or Christcore is a subcategory of hardcore punk bands which promote Christian belief. The method and extent of doing so varies between bands. Christian hardcore bands have often openly stated their beliefs and employ Christia ...

band in 1998. They recorded their first album, ''

The Frailty of Words Hopesfall is an American post-hardcore band from Charlotte, North Carolina, formed in 1998. They are currently signed to Equal Vision Records. The band dissolved in 2008 after all members, with the exception of singer Jay Forrest, left the ban ...

'', that same year, and it was released in November 1999 on Christian hardcore/punk label DTS Records. Following the release of ''The Frailty of Words'', founding bassist Christopher Kincaid left the band, to be replaced by Pat Aldrich. In 2001, the band released the EP, ''

No Wings to Speak Of ''No Wings to Speak Of'' is an EP by melodic hardcore band Hopesfall. The EP was first released on Takehold Records in 2001, and was re-released in 2002 by Trustkill Records and on vinyl in 2008 by One Day Savior Recordings. Track listing Pe ...

'' on Takehold Records. Ryan Parrish was at the helm of songwriting during time, creating what would become known as the signature ''.hopesfall.'' sound in the

melodic hardcore Melodic hardcore is a broadly defined subgenre of hardcore punk with a strong emphasis on melody in its guitar work. It generally incorporates fast rhythms, melodic and often distorted guitar riffs, and vocal styles tending towards shouting and ...

genre.

''The Satellite Years'' and exit of Ryan Parrish (2002–2004)

2002's ''

The Satellite Years ''The Satellite Years'' is the second studio album by the melodic hardcore band Hopesfall. It was released in 2002 on Trustkill Records, the group's first for the company. The album was also released on vinyl by One Day Savior Recordings. The al ...

'' saw the band signed to

Trustkill Records Trustkill Records was an American independent record label that started as a hardcore punk fanzine in April 1993. It started releasing hardcore, metal and rock records and merchandise in 1994. In 2010, the president of Trustkill, Josh Grabelle ...

for a 3-album deal. This marked the departure of founding vocalist Doug Venable, and bassist Pat Aldrich. Jay Forrest replaced Venable on vocals. Chad Waldrup replaced Aldrich as bassist. Ryan Parrish, main songwriter, lyricist, lead guitarist, vocalist, and visionary behind the ''.hopesfall.'' trademark sound, was asked by the rest of the band to leave due to "personal differences" in the wake of the recording of ''The Satellite Years''. Ryan felt disillusioned with Trustkill Records taking creative control from the band and imposing the marriage of commerce with the band's art. This resulted in contention with the rest of the band who sided with the label, forgoing the previous vision of ''.hopesfall.'' The exit of Ryan Parrish would mark the end of the band's trademark melodic hardcore sound, Christian message, as Ryan was the primary songwriter and spokesperson along with Venable, the two were regarded as the Christians in the band. The Satellite Years was released post Parrish's exit, despite him having been the primary songwriter for album

was recorded at Great Western Record Recorders studio by Matt Talbott from

HUM Hum may refer to: Science * Hum (sound), a sound produced with closed lips, or by insects, or other periodic motion * Mains hum, an electric or electromagnetic phenomenon * The Hum, an acoustic phenomenon * Venous hum, a physiological sensation ...

. The band confirmed via a Facebook story that Chad Waldrup beat Matt Talbott in the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and Au ...

game "

GoldenEye ''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the ser ...

" which resulted in Talbott having to make good on a bet to sing vocals on, "Escape Pods for Intangibles." Ryan Parrish went on to join Nashville

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band Celebrity, and is currently the lead guitarist in shoegaze band In Parallel. Mike Tyson played bass for the band on the ''Satellite Years'' tour, later joining the band as a permanent member. Chad Waldrup departed the band shortly after taking over live guitar duties, and was replaced by Dustin Nadler.

''A Types'' (2004–2007)

The band followed ''The Satellite Years'' with 2004's ''

A Types ''A Types'' is the third full-length album released by the post-hardcore band Hopesfall. The musical direction of this album deviated vastly from their hardcore roots, instead opting for a more rock-oriented sound. On January 28, 2017, the alb ...

'', which had a more

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

sound and was a drastic stylistic departure from ''The Satellite Years'' – notably, Forrest's vocals were almost exclusively clean singing. By the time of ''A Types release, Joshua Brigham was the only remaining founding member of Hopesfall, and along with Jay Forrest, the only other remaining member from the lineup that appeared on ''The Satellite Years'', with drummer Adam Morgan having departed weeks before recording. Morgan was replaced by Adam Baker, who departed the band during the ''A Types'' tour to be replaced by Morgan again. Morgan left the band for good prior to the recording of the band's next album, ''

Magnetic North The north magnetic pole, also known as the magnetic north pole, is a point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field points vertically downward (in other words, if a magnetic compass needle is allowed t ...

'', and was replaced by Jason Trabue.

''Magnetic North'' and breakup (2007–2008)

''Magnetic North'' was released on May 15, 2007. The album saw the band strike a balance between the contrasting styles found on ''The Satellite Years'' and ''A Types''. They toured little in support of ''Magnetic North'', and in July of that year they announced further lineup changes, with Joshua Brigham, Mike Tyson, Dustin Nadler, and Jason Trabue all leaving the band. Cory Seals, Robert DeLauro, Paul Cadena, and Joey Manzione filled the vacancies, and, along with Jay Forrest, continued the US leg of the ''Magnetic North'' tour. In September 2007, the band announced plans to change their name, thus ending the Hopesfall era; however, these plans never came to fruition. In January 2009, rumors circulated of Forrest's intentions to record vocals for several unfinished Hopesfall songs, though no further updates were reported. Following the ''Magnetic North'' tour, the replacement members left the band, and in January 2008, Hopesfall finally announced their breakup.

''.hopesfall.'' reunion (2011)

On August 5 and 6, 2011, the lineup from ''No Wings to Speak Of'' (Doug, Josh, Ryan, Adam and Pat) reunited to play shows in

Winston-Salem Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...

, North Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina. They played songs from those releases as well as ''The Satellite Years''.

Second reunion and ''Arbiter'' (2016–present)

The band reunited in 2016 and signed to

, who re-issued their last 3 albums on vinyl. The band announced their intent to release a new album in 2017. The lineup for this new album comprises long-serving vocalist Jay Forrest, founding guitarist Josh Brigham and ''A-Types'' and ''Magnetic North'' guitarist Dustin Nadler, ''Satellite Years'' bassist Chad Waldrup, and founding drummer Adam Morgan. Hopesfall released "H.A. Wallace Space Academy" on April 11, 2018, the first single from the new album and the band's first new song in 11 years. On June 12, 2018, the second single, "Tunguska", was released."Hopesfall break the reunion curse, come back swinging with "Tunguska""
/ref> '' Arbiter'', the band's fifth studio album, was released on July 13, 2018, through Equal Vision/Graphic Nature Records. The album was recorded and produced by

Mike Watts Mike Watts is an American audio engineer, mixer, and record producer, who has worked with a variety of artists including The Dillinger Escape Plan, Glassjaw, As Cities Burn, Hopesfall, As Tall As Lions, The Dear Hunter, and Gates. Watts ha ...

, who also worked with the band on ''

'' and ''

''. On May 31, 2019, the band announced the return of Ryan Parrish as lead guitarist on their Facebook page after 17 years apart. On February 24, 2020, the band released a new song titled "Hall of the Sky" that was available on streaming services the following day. In addition to the band's atmospheric post-hardcore sound, the song also features elements of

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

and

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

. The song is the first Hopesfall recording with Parrish since 2002's ''The Satellite Years''. In March 2020, the band had planned to embark on a tour across Japan with Taken. The tour was supposed to begin on March 25 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, but it was later announced that the tour would be postponed due to concerns over the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. As of December 2nd 2022 the band announced the postponed tour of Japan was back on again.

Relationship with Trustkill

The band's relationship with Trustkill was always adversarial; the label altered the track listing for ''Magnetic North'' without the band's knowledge, and in an interview in the wake of the band's breakup, former drummer Jason Trabue accused the label of providing the band with insufficient promotion and financial support throughout their tenure on Trustkill, as well as withholding

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

. In response to the MySpace bulletin announcing the band's breakup and revealing their distaste for their former label, as well as the interview with Trabue, Trustkill founder Josh Grabelle denied the accusations and leveled his own unsubstantiated allegations of drug use by the band as a cause for the breakup.

Musical style and influences

The band's musical style has changed over the course of its career, but has primarily been described as

, and

space rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...

. The band was originally described as

on the debut ''Frailty of Words''. The albums ''

'' and ''

'' have also been described as

metalcore Metalcore (also known as metallic hardcore) is a fusion music genre that combines elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. As with other styles blending metal and hardcore, such as crust punk and grindcore, metalcore is noted for its use of ...

. The band's influences are very diverse. The band is influenced by

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

bands such as

Cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

Karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

, and

The Appleseed Cast The Appleseed Cast is an American rock band from Lawrence, Kansas. The band was founded in the early days of emo by singer-guitarist Christopher Crisci and drummer Louie Ruiz. The Appleseed Cast has steadily evolved over the release of eight fu ...

;

bands such as

and

Jawbox Jawbox is an American alternative rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in 1989 by J. Robbins (vocals/guitar), Kim Coletta (bass), and Adam Wade (drums). After the trio released the album '' Grippe'' in 1991, Bill Barbot (guitar/vocals) joi ...

; and

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

bands such as

Strongarm The StrongARM is a family of computer microprocessors developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and manufactured in the late 1990s which implemented the ARM v4 instruction set architecture. It was later acquired by Intel in 1997 from DEC's o ...

, Bloodshed,

Shai Hulud Shai Hulud is an American metalcore band formed in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1995, and later based in Poughkeepsie, New York. The band is named after the giant sandworms in Frank Herbert's novel ''Dune''. The two mainstay members of Shai Hul ...

, and Overcome.

Band members

Current lineup * Jay Forrest – vocals (2001–2008, 2016–present) * Adam Morgan – drums (1998–2004, 2005–2006, 2011, 2016-present) * Joshua Brigham – guitar (1998–2007, 2011, 2016–present) * Chad Waldrup – bass, backing vocals (2001–2003, 2016–present), guitar (2011) * Ryan Parrish – guitar, backing vocals (1998–2002, 2011, 2019–present) * Will Goodyear — guitar, backing vocals (2020-present) Past members * Dustin Nadler – guitar (2002–2007, 2016–2019) * Pat Aldrich – bass (1999–2001, 2011) * Doug Venable – vocals (1998–2001, 2011) * Christopher Kincaid – bass, backing vocals (1998–1999) * Mike Tyson – bass (2002–2007) * Adam Baker – drums (2004–2005) * Jason Trabue – drums (2006–2007) Touring musicians * Cory Seals – guitars (2007–2008) * Paul Cadena – guitars (2007–2008) * Robert DeLauro – bass (2007–2008) * Joey Manzione – drums (2007–2008) ; Timeline ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:100 bottom:90 top:0 right:0 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/09/1998 till:01/01/2020 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:4 ScaleMajor = increment:2 start:1999 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1999 Colors = id:Vocals value:red legend:Vocals id:Guitar value:green legend:Guitar id:Bass value:blue legend:Bass id:Drums value:orange legend:Drums id:BV value:pink legend:Backing_vocals id:T value:yellow legend:Touring_member id:studio value:black legend:Studio album id:EP value:gray(0.55) legend:Other_release id:bars value:gray(0.95) BackgroundColors = bars:bars Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:4 LineData = layer:back at:29/09/1999 color:studio at:08/08/2001 color:EP at:15/10/2002 color:studio at:02/11/2004 color:studio at:15/05/2007 color:studio at:13/07/2018 color:studio BarData = bar:Doug text:"Doug Venable" bar:Jay text:"Jay Forrest" bar:Joshua text:"Joshua Brigham" bar:Ryan text:"Ryan Parrish" bar:Dustin text:"Dustin Nadler" bar:Pat text:"Pat Aldrich" bar:Mike text:"Mike Tyson" bar:Chad text:"Chad Waldrup" bar:Adam text:"Adam Morgan" bar:Baker text:"Adam Baker" bar:Jason text:"Jason Trabue" PlotData= width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Doug from:01/09/1998 till:01/01/2002 color:Vocals bar:Doug from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Vocals bar:Joshua from:01/09/1998 till:01/07/2007 color:Guitar bar:Joshua from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Guitar bar:Joshua from:15/11/2016 till:end color:Guitar bar:Ryan from:01/09/1998 till:01/01/2002 color:Guitar bar:Ryan from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Guitar bar:Ryan from:17/05/2019 till:end color:Guitar bar:Ryan from:01/09/1998 till:01/01/2002 color:BV width:3 bar:Ryan from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:BV width:3 bar:Ryan from:17/05/2019 till:end color:BV width:3 bar:Pat from:01/01/2000 till:01/01/2002 color:Bass bar:Pat from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Bass bar:Adam from:01/09/1998 till:01/01/2004 color:Drums bar:Adam from:01/01/2005 till:01/01/2006 color:Drums bar:Adam from:01/01/2005 till:01/01/2006 color:T width:3 bar:Adam from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Drums bar:Adam from:15/11/2016 till:end color:Drums bar:Jay from:01/01/2002 till:01/01/2008 color:Vocals bar:Jay from:15/11/2016 till:end color:Vocals bar:Mike from:15/10/2002 till:01/07/2007 color:Bass bar:Mike from:15/10/2002 till:01/01/2003 color:T width:3 bar:Dustin from:01/01/2002 till:01/07/2007 color:Guitar bar:Dustin from:15/11/2016 till:17/05/2019 color:Guitar bar:Chad from:01/01/2002 till:01/01/2003 color:Bass bar:Chad from:01/01/2002 till:01/01/2003 color:BV width:3 bar:Chad from:15/11/2016 till:end color:Bass bar:Chad from:15/11/2016 till:end color:BV width:3 bar:Baker from:01/01/2004 till:01/01/2005 color:Drums bar:Jason from:01/01/2006 till:01/07/2007 color:Drums bar:Chad from:15/07/2011 till:06/08/2011 color:Guitar

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

Singles

Music videos

References

{{Hopesfall Musical groups established in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2008 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups disestablished in 2011 Musical groups reestablished in 2016 Tooth & Nail Records artists Trustkill Records artists Equal Vision Records artists