Editor’s Note: “Scoped” album reviews are reserved for the records we believe to be among the very best of the year.

On May 11, 2019, Balance & Composure played their final show at The Fillmore in Philadelphia before entering an indefinite hiatus. This was close to ten years after I had discovered the band, and it still felt much too soon to be saying goodbye. That final show at the Fillmore was filmed, and I watched it over and over again in the following years. I recall nights spent with my best friends where we would sit on my couch and throw on the TV that final Fillmore performance while reminiscing on how much this band meant so much to us.

In 2023 Savior Mode and Last to Know were dropped suddenly with an announcement that Balance was back. Jon heavily hinted on his podcast that there would be more beyond those new 2023 singles. Still, the announcement of with you in spirit still felt surreal. They’re really back. Countless conversations with friends saying, “imagine if Balance came back, imagine if they put out a new record” made it feel like a complete manifestation.

Balance haven’t missed a beat in the eight-year gap between with you in spirit and their 2016 masterpiece, Light We Made. They return full force and louder than ever thanks to Will Yip’s wall-of-sound production. With you in spirit shows Balance honing in on the very DNA that shapes their identity. It feels like a band looking forward yet being intentional to keep in mind the walls that they’ve already built that hold up their shape. With you in spirit feels familiar in that sense, in the best way possible. When you hear it for the first time, it feels like an accumulation of this bands entire catalog. Here, Balance sound hyper-focused on creating the quintessential record that they could hand to someone that has never heard them before and say, “this is exactly what Balance & Composure is”.

Doing so is no light work – this record is a force. When I say that with you in spirit feels like the quintessential Balance album, there needs to be an emphasis on “essential”, because that is absolutely what this record is. You hear it in moments like “a little of myself” or “any means”, where the band delivers some of the catchiest songs melodically of the bands career. You hear it on “believe the hype” where in the final minute of the track it feels like Balance has reached total rupture to deliver one of the most visceral moments of music you’ll hear in this genre all year.

“Restless” opens the record and keeps you guessing where the group is about to take us. We know with Light We Made that Balance is willing to walk off the beaten path of your typical emo-alternative band when it comes to vocal modulation. We hear the layered vocals of Jon Simmons modulated delivery slowly piling up and increasing in presence as this linear intro track rises into feedback. The feedback is abruptly interrupted by a brief drum machine groove that explodes into “aint it sweet”. It is in this moment that it feels like this entire era of Balance & Composure is born. Here, we go from pinching ourselves that they’re back, and we shift into reality as “aint it sweet” proclaims, “we are back” on behalf of every member of the band.

This is not a band haphazardly putting out a reunion album to make people shrug and go, “yeah, that’s a Balance record”… instead, with you in spirit could be the Balance record. Here, on LP4, Balance have given us what is hands down contender for the best album of their career. All of the members of Balance have moments on this album that you can point to as proof that this really is an album with career highlight work. Jon Simmons is giving us what is, in my opinion, his strongest lyrical display in Balances catalog. “closer to god” is the best song lyrically that Jon has ever written. This track tackles the topic of wrestling with your own disbelief in the context of the believers around you, some of which are your family and people you love. In the second verse Jon sings, “What good could come from the soul / you’ll get rewards if you do what you’re told / like giving a child a gun / pray that he won’t take it out on someone”. From start to finish, this track is a lyrical masterpiece.

Dennis Wilson – the bands new drummer – does a brilliant job of helping create a rhythmic foundation alongside bassist Matt Warner that is completely true to the style Balance spent a decade plus carving out for themselves. The two of them are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here giving with you in spirit that signature “Balance” feeling. Erik Peterson and Andy Slaymaker are by all means pulling their weight here too, as their work is integral to making Balance what it is. Will Yip also needs to be mentioned as a contributing factor to the identity of this record. A song like “any means” has so much going on vocally, but somehow is produced in a way where it never feels cluttered. It’s like Jons vocals are all constantly dancing around eachother but never crashing, which is incredibly difficult to achieve with how many vocal layers are here.

Where with you in spirit is clearly distinct from previous Balance work is in moments like “cross to bear” where rather than leaning into crescendos, the band opts to go for melodic mid-tempo moments that become total ear worms the more you hear them. It is easy to approach a song like “lead foot” when you’re a band in this genre and plug in the massive crescendo at the end because that’s kind of just what is expected of you. Instead of predicable crescendos, Balance instead delivers moments like the refrain of “lead foot” where Jon sings, “I always hope for the best / something feels wrong in my chest” – again, much like the little moments of “cross to bear”, this is a small moment that will stay stuck in your head the more you return to it. Balance is a band that may not be immediately catchy, but you’ll find the more you spend time with these songs, the more you’ll constantly have certain sections stuck in your head. Of course, they have moments where they are loud all over this record, but with you in spirit introduces to us a version of Balance & Composure that knows exactly when to show restraint and have it pay off.

Now adays, the “comeback record” as an idea almost feels inevitable. A lot of the time when it comes to music discourse, the question is “when will a band come back”, rather than “will they come back?”. When it comes to with you in spirit, however, it is accomplishing something that very few comeback records achieve, and that is an essential addition to the bands catalog. It isn’t just the type of record that makes me go, “well, it’s okay – but I’m just glad they’re back!”… instead, with you in spirit is the type of album that makes me say, “this band cannot go away again

Rating – 9.5/10

Balance and Composure – With You in Spirit

Release date: 10/4/24

Tracklist:

restless
ain’t it sweet
any means
cross to bear
believe the hype
lead foot
sorrow machine
a little of myself
closer to god
with you in spirit

Written by Kennedy Higginbotham