All That Remains Comes Back With New Music for the First Time in Six Years

All That Remains still remains one of the most influential metalcore bands of all time.

But after the unexpected death of founding guitarist Oli Herbert in 2018, only a month after the release of latest album Victim of the New Disease, there were questions about the group’s future. And for six years, the Massachusetts juggernaut went silent.

That all changed this year when All That Remains shared its first singles — “Divine” and “Let You Go” — since then. There’s a new album on the way, too, though neither a release date nor a title have been publicly announced yet.

But All That Remains is officially back.

Bassist Matt Deis, who initially left the band in 2005 to join weirdo rockers CKY, couldn’t be more pumped about the present. Other than reconnecting with old friends, the new music is flowing. The two new tracks are proof that All That Remains hasn’t lost any of its signature edge.

“There’s a lot of excitement. Obviously, a lot has changed over the last couple of years while we were preparing this album,” Deis says. “But there are songs that are going to be on this album that have been five, six years in the works. There was a stockpile of music ready to go.”
The Massachusetts quintet just needed some time to reform under the guidance of original vocalist Phil Labonte. First, lead guitarist Jason Richardson (formerly of All Shall Perish and Chelsea Grin) stepped in, alongside longtime rhythm guitarist Mike Martin. Then the group welcomed back Deis in 2022. Drummer Anthony Barone (Beneath the Massacre) now rounds out the new-look All That Remains. Catch ’em on Tuesday, August 6, at Ball Arena, with Megadeth and Mudvayne.

“We have some incredible players on board now,” Deis adds. “With the new material we’ve been writing with Jason and Anthony, we feel completely reinvigorated. It’s been incredible to work with this new blood.”

“It felt like a natural fit to come back,” he says. He remembers when All That Remains was blowing up in the Springfield area and how Herbert taught him to play guitar back then.

“I took lessons from him as a preteen,” Deis recalls. “These are all people who have been in my life since I was very young.”

After forming in 1998, All That Remains steadily rose to notoriety, landing on bigger and bigger bills such as Ozzfest, before 2006 album The Fall of Ideals put them on the map worldwide. Behind hit singles “Six,” which was featured on the Guitar Hero II video game, and “This Calling,” the lead song on the Saw III soundtrack, The Fall of Ideals has since been certified gold.

“Staying close with them and watching their career take off the way it did, I was so proud of them,” Deis says, adding that he was “essentially a child” when he first joined the group in 2002. “It was incredible to watch their success with the radio singles and the gold records. I was just cheering them on from the sidelines.”

Now being on a stadium tour with thrash titans Megadeth, a band Deis has seen over twenty times as a fan, feels a little surreal. It’s a testament to how far All That Remains has come and how big the genre has grown since those early days. Deis jokes it took that long for he and his running mates to learn how to write better songs.

“It’s been crazy to watch metalcore over the years evolve from the roots where it wasn’t really song-structure focused. It was riffs and let’s see how fast we can play. Let’s see how heavy we can make this breakdown,” he explains, adding that All That Remains has pretty much perfected its formula at this point.

“We know where the roots are. We know what brought us to the dance in the first place, the initial heaviness, the immediacy, the power, aggression and the complexity of the music,” he continues. “At the same time, we’re older now, so we know how to write a hook so that people can enjoy it. We’re really trying to get back to the original stuff that made it so special to begin with while adding in all the things we learned over the years.”

It helps that the band found a way to fill the hole that a player as prominent as Herbert left with “one of the best guitar players in the world” in Richardson, according to Deis. Now it's all about “bringing the riffs back.”

All That Remains recently teamed up with country artist RVSHVD for a single, “Proof,” that came out in July. Labonte and RVSHVD initially connected through social media before agreeing to collaborate.

Deis, who currently lives in Nashville and plays with country bands on the side, sees similarities between metalheads and new country crooners.

“There’s a lot of mutual respect between all of it because the melodies they can write, the stories they can tell, then the aggression we can bring — you can create a pretty moving song if you blend the two,” he says.

Country or metalcore, it’s just good to see All That Remains isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“We’re having a lot of fun with it,” Deis concludes.

All That Remains, with Megadeth and Mudvayne, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 6, Ball Arena, 1000 Chopper Circle. Tickets are $23-$99.