Written By Kevin McSweeney
It is a great honour for me to be able to review the debut full-length offering from the most incongruously-named outfit in our entire purview. Still in Love is certainly a strange choice of name for anyone operating under the auspices of hardcore punk, a realm in which anger is very much the emotional default setting.
Now, I say it’s their full-length debut. To be honest, I have reviewed a few EPs this year that are longer than this album, which clocks in at just 23 minutes and 24 seconds over the course of eight tracks. In fact, I’m sure Dream Theater have a song that is double its length, but that’s the beauty of hardcore punk, isn’t it? Arrive, administer a swift size-12 boot to the bollocks, and depart unceremoniously. No fucking around! All the same, that’s not the kind of conduct you expect from a band called Still in Love, but when you remember that it is comprised of former members of Dead Swans, Throats, Brutality Will Prevail, Last Witness and Bring Me The Horizon, it starts to make a little more sense.
Opening track Tell the Truth lays out the facts of what is to come in no uncertain terms, with its insistent chugging opening chord and pounding drums combo, it’s as much a crescendo as it is a song, setting the scene for the subsequent pummeling. To paraphrase the great Rowdy Roddy Piper, if they came to kick ass and chew gum, it looks like they’re all out of gum. Whereas just listening to Nervous Impulse has the mosh pit bruises appearing on my flesh like stigmata. They rival early Napalm Death in terms of pace and intensity over the course of a minute and 45 seconds of absolute ferocity, which culminates in a brutal breakdown.
And just like that, it’s already the third song of the album, with a mere 3 minutes and 42 seconds having elapsed, and we’re onto the lead single of Recovery Language. Preserve & Cherish, which features a guest appearance from Sam Carter of Architects, was released with an accompanying video, and it’s clear why it was chosen. A hitherto unrevealed melodic sensibility comes to the fore on this track, with riffs verging on those of Silent Alarm-era Bloc Party, only with more heft, and the pace is much more moderate. The vocals remain aggressive throughout, however, with throat-lacerating fury being very much the order of the day.
We are back to the blast beats with Feathered Nest, and I’m certain I can hear traces of tremolo picking, though that probably says more about me than anything else. (I hear tremolo picking in children’s nursery rhymes. Baa Baa Black Metal Sheep, anyone?) A little bit of melody creeps back into the lead guitar towards the end, though you’d possibly be too bloodied and bludgeoned at this stage to notice.
Inherit opens with some mid-paced chugging, which leads to what Lindsay from The Moshville Times would call a “stompy-stomp” moment – every bit as conducive to casual violence as good slow hardcore should be! From a drummer’s perspective, some of the accented rolls on both bass drums and snare are rendered with highly impressive flair. Needless to say, it isn’t long before they hit the accelerator once again, and we are treated to a tour de force of their chosen subgenre, with speed and snarling ferocity to the fore, followed by a brief but bestial breakdown, and an ending in the form of eerie synths and subdued drums under guitars that buzz back into life before cutting out altogether.
We are practically getting into prog territory, relatively speaking, with The State of Things to Come, which weighs in at a whopping 4 minutes and 16 seconds. Surprisingly, it’s a fast number. Though it doesn’t quite hit the same extremes of pace as Nervous Impulse or Feathered Nest, I had thought they might slow things down a bit for the longer song. After two minutes or so, that’s exactly what they do, and the lead guitars take on an almost mournful quality, similar to Icon-era Paradise Lost.
You Have to Let It Go is initially a lumbering, muscular brute of a track, making up for its relative lace of pace with fist-clenching intensity, until we stumble across some more of those Bloc Party-style melodies and the emergence of clean vocals, a rarity indeed on this album. At this stage, they sound more metalcore than hardcore, and it’s a reminder that they have a former member of Bring Me The Horizon, in the form of guitarist Curtis Ward, in their ranks. Ultimately, it’s the sort of song that would beat you to a bloody pulp, but feel sad about it afterwards.
And that brings us to our final track, a gargantuan affair that, at 5 minutes and 12 seconds, constitutes over 20% of the album’s running time. Pillar of Strength is where they really show their range, from the slow, dramatic buildup at the start with the palm-muted metal riff, to the robust New York-style hardcore of the verses to the blast-beat-infused, partially melodic chorus with its plaintive chord structure. We then switch to moody arpeggios in 6/8 time and a brief burst of high-speed black metal – shut up! Yes, it is! – before we’re confronted with a lead melody that wouldn’t be out of place on a Cure album. It then draws to a close with a slow, heavy chug that fades into white noise. And that, as they say, is that: all delivered in so brief a time, my weak and aged bladder didn’t prompt me to pause it to go to the toilet once. Overall, it’s an emphatic statement of intent from a fellowship of wily campaigners congregating under a brand new banner. Still in Love are an exciting addition to the UK hardcore scene, even if their name is as entirely at odds with it as if you were to have a cheesy pop band aimed at pre-teens called Mutilated Zombie Phallus. Don’t let the name put you off.
Metal Lair rates Still in Love’s album Re overy Language 4 and a half metal horns.
Recovery Language by Still in Love is available from September 5th via Church Road Records.
Track listing:
1. Tell The Truth (01:57)
2. Nervous Impulse (01:45)
3. Preserve & Cherish [ft. Sam Carter] (02:48)
4. Feathered Nest (02:17)
5. Inherit (02:43)
6. The State Of Things To Come (04:16)
7. You Have To Let It Go (02:26)
8. Pillar Of Strength (05:12)
Total: (23:24)
Band members:
Nick Worthington – Vocals
Adrian Cecil – Bass
Mark Ringrose – Guitar
Curtis Ward – Guitar
Marc Richards – Drums
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