Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review, another one man band to showcase! Ben Simon released his fourth studio album called No Trees Grow Here on October 24th, 2025.
I once again found this album through a Facebook ad of all things. Ben has this really nice sound of mid-2000’s metalcore with a(what sounds like) influence of melodic death metal. Which he told me isn’t intentional, but makes sense with the metalcore influence. I heard old school Metalcore described as “kids taking In Flames riffs, a catchy chorus and adding a breakdown” as the formula for metalcore. The way he manages to make things super groove oriented but also heavy as shit really makes this great.
So while this is a “one man band” there are seven different features on this release. He also had help from Logan Adams who does all of the vocals(except the features), Evan Hilderbrandt who cowrote the lyrics and Hayden Jennekens worked on arrangements and pre-production while demoing.
My favorite track on the album is Consult the Bones. It starts with a ambient clean guitar groove which abruptly changes gears and goes into the main verse. It is this chuggy and slow guitar riff with matching drums underneath. The chorus is a variation on the intro guitar but sped up slightly with distortion added to the guitar.
Overall on my personal scale I would give this album a 9/10. For those of us that love the older metalcore this is exactly what we are looking for. There aren’t any of the catchy choruses, but damn this checks every other box I could’ve asked for! The breakdowns are in the right spots, riffs are melodic and vocals are brutal. As always don’t forget to stream, follow and even buy the music in this article! Links to all of Ben Simon’s socials and streaming are below!
https://bensimon.bandcamp.com/album/no-trees-grow-here
https://open.spotify.com/album/1iUAaoTRBGCfOkP7IpOJUu
https://music.apple.com/us/album/no-trees-grow-here/1829018575
https://www.instagram.com/bengsimon1/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/BenSimonProject/
Courtesy of technicalmusicreview.com.
