They Fear Us

''They Fear Us'' is the second and final studio album by the British metalcore band Ithaca, released on 29 July 2022 by Hassle Records. Recorded at The Ranch Production House with producer Lewis Johns, Ithaca aimed to experiment with the sound of metalcore, drawing inspiration and incorporating elements from a diverse range of genres. Its lyrics are centred on themes of "divine feminine power", empowerment, revenge, trauma, and healing. Ithaca utilised aesthetics unconventional for the metal genre in the album's cover artwork, press photos and music videos.

''They Fear Us'' received critical acclaim for its songwriting, progression, and vocalist Djamila Boden Azzouz's performance. The album appeared on several year-end lists and earned Ithaca nominations in the "Best Production" and "Best Single" (for the title track) categories at the Heavy Music Awards 2023. The band toured the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States in support of the album. In November 2023, they performed the album in its entirety at The Dome in London.

Background and recording

In February 2019, Ithaca released its debut album, ''The Language of Injury'', through Holy Roar Records. The band were touring Denmark when the country enacted lockdown measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing them to return to the United Kingdom, which enacted its own lockdown restrictions weeks later. Their efforts to work on new material, which had just commenced, were subsequently stalled. During the pandemic, vocalist Djamila Boden Azzouz's mother became seriously ill and the members of Ithaca dealt with grief, mental health issues, and internal conflict. Guitarist Sam Chetan-Welsh credited the pandemic with helping its members self-reflect and work on their mental health—he was able to work through his past trauma dating back to the recording of ''The Language of Injury''—and take more creative risks. Bassist Dom Moss said that Azzouz's lyrics became less introspective and vicious as the pandemic receded. In addition, Ithaca left Holy Roar after its founder was accused of sexual misconduct in September 2020 and subsequently signed to Hassle Records.

''They Fear Us'' was largely written organically and online; Azzouz felt the latter lent urgency to their few in-person meetups. Chetan-Welsh, who handled most of the writing, taught himself how to record demos during the pandemic and worked on programming drum loops and synth parts. In an interview with ''The Midlands Rocks'', he stated that he would usually bring the band a riff or basic song structure based around a pattern by drummer James Lewis, who would also write around his riffs. The band would then build around what he had brought, with Azzouz providing feedback about song structures with her vocals. Azzouz credited Chetan-Welsh with coming up with some of the album's "more creative and out there ideas".

Once writing was completed, Ithaca recorded ''They Fear Us'' at The Ranch Production House in Southampton with producer Lewis Johns. The extended recording window compared to the nine days they had for their previous album ''The Language of Injury'' allowed the band to experiment. Ithaca used both programmed and live synthesisers, including a Yamaha DX7 and a Fender Rhodes; Azzouz credited Johns with writing many of the album's synthesiser parts. Johns also wrote a horn arrangement for "You Should Have Gone Back". Chetan-Welsh said that Hassle "didn't ask any questions" during recording and "more or less" thanked the band when they turned the album in.

Composition and lyrics

''They Fear Us'' is a metalcore album. ''Ox-Fanzine'' Rodney Fuchs and ''MetalSucks'' Mandy Scythe underlined difficulties in categorizing its genre, with the former considering it "far beyond ..designation". Chetan-Welsh described the album as "prog-hardcore". Its tracks have been described as incorporating elements from alternative rock, blackgaze, industrial metal, mathcore, new wave, nu metal, power pop, and shoegaze. Azzouz stated that Ithaca wanted to experiment with the sound of metalcore without "carbon copying" it, and pay tribute to bands that inspired them. The members of Ithaca's interests in djent, gospel, disco, and 1990s R&B ballads served as additional influences, alongside artists including Deftones, Prince, Van Halen, and Talking Heads. Chetan-Welsh drew influence from 1970s prog music and jazz, which he began listening to during the pandemic. Azzouz uses more clean singing than on Ithaca's previous album, having embraced it during recording after years of avoiding it by approaching it "the same way I look at screaming and using my voice as an instrument."

The lyrics of ''They Fear Us'' are centred on themes of "divine feminine power", empowerment, revenge, trauma, and healing. They also deal with " male power structures", self-discovery

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