156/Silence have spent the last few years pushing their sound into increasingly unpredictable territory, but From A Distance feels less like a left turn than the point where all of those fractured ideas finally collide. Announced today alongside the bruising first single ‘No Arms’, the Pittsburgh band’s sixth album arrives 4 September via Pure Noise Records and continues the restless evolution that made 2024’s People Watching such a breakout moment for the group.
Stream ‘No Arms’ HERE.
Where many modern metalcore bands chase immediacy at all costs, 156/Silence remain fascinated by discomfort. ‘No Arms’ moves with a suffocating sense of dread, balancing punishing heaviness against long stretches of tension and atmosphere. Vocalist Jack Murray describes the track as being about helplessness and the terror of losing control, themes that bleed directly into the song’s slow-building anxiety. Even at its most violent, the track never feels reckless. Every shift lands with deliberate weight.
Produced by Josh Schroeder, whose recent work with acts like Lorna Shore and The Plot In You has helped redefine the scale of modern heavy music, From A Distance appears determined to widen the band’s emotional and sonic reach even further.
Lyrically, the album expands on the social unease and inward collapse explored across People Watching. Songs tackle celebrity worship, intrusive thoughts, emotional isolation and the strange disconnect of modern life, though Murray’s writing avoids collapsing into abstraction. Even the record’s darker concepts remain painfully recognisable. That tension between intimacy and scale has become one of the band’s defining strengths.
There’s also a palpable sense of momentum surrounding 156/Silence right now. Their reputation as a formidable live act has been built through relentless touring alongside bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Counterparts and Silent Planet, while People Watching proved they could stretch beyond mathcore chaos without losing their identity. Perhaps most striking is the confidence running underneath all of it. From synth-heavy experimentation to bursts of pure technical violence, 156/Silence sound like a band increasingly aware that they can go almost anywhere from here.
North American fans have their chance to see the band on the final two weeks of the Mercia Tour with Thornhill, Fox Lake and Vianova, followed by a quick headlining run in late May into early June. The band will then be performing at Inkcarceration in July before hitting the road on the It’s Not You, It’s Me North American run with Chiodos, sace6 and Calva Louise, followed by a performance at Louder Than Life in September. Go HERE for tour info.
