New Music Report – May 20, 2022
This is admittedly a pretty big week, there are at least two banner releases that I’ve been very excited for (Be Well and Cave In) and both of them, somehow, managed to exceed expectations. Couple that with new music, once again, from The Wonder Years and Alexisonfire in the same week, it’s hard to get much better than that.
Static Dress – This is another one of those really cool new screamo bands out there like SeeYouSpaceCowboy and If I Die First, that somehow manages to perfectly recapture a sound that most of these kids were far too young to experience the first time around, which allows them to add their own perspective in the songwriting, so it’s not just a bunch of old dudes rehashing their glory days. I think it’s a brilliant formula and I’m such a huge fan of all these young bands. These guys, being from the UK, have really strong Funeral for a Friend vibes and I absolutely love it.
Cave In – Cave In really needs no introduction, they’re one of the most legendary names in metalcore, post hardcore, and whatever other sound they happen to be experimenting with at the time. After transitioning from metalcore after quite literally defining the genre with Until Your Heart Stops, to a mostly post-hardcore based sound over 20 years ago, they’ve been sort of all over the place, Jupiter got them a lot of mainstream success as a post-hardcore/space rock type album, but they’ve been hit or miss for me since then. This newest album, Heavy Pendulum, however, is easily their best work in the past 20 years. It sounds less experimental and more just absolutely dialed in like you would expect from a band that’s been together for a quarter century. I do love Cave In, but I was not expecting something quite this remarkably good at this point in their career, this has been on repeat for a long time and will surely end up on my album of the year list.
Be Well EP – I love this band so much, I’ve been tracking these guys since day 1, they’re a Baltimore/DC punk band with members from Darkest Hour, Bane, Battery, etc, and it sounds like a purely authentic, nostalgic DC-area emotional, melodic hardcore band, backed up by some of the all-time greats from that, and adjacent genres. Everything they do sounds like they’ve perfected the sound and are putting on just an absolute masterclass in what emotional hardcore should sound like. And that’s probably because they did perfect the sound individually, years ago. Part of this is a nostalgia trip, taking me back to all the shitty hardcore and punk shows I’d go to back in DC when I was admittedly far too young to be doing so, but if that’s all it is, I’ll listen to these guys until the end of time. Fortunately, it’s so much more than that, so even someone without those equivalent life experiences, playing into a strong sense of nostalgia like I am, can enjoy this album just as much as I do.
Singles/Albums – Wonder Years (Emo/Pop Punk), Alexisonfire (Post-Hardcore), Secrets (Metalcore), The Algorithm (Electronic/Djent), Dragged Under (Punk), Arch Enemy (Metal), Patent Sixty-Seven (Metalcore), Mayday Parade (Pop Punk), Our Last Night (Metalcore), Asking Alexandria (Metalcore), Bleeding Through (Metalcore), Brojob (Deathcore), Anthony Green (Alternative), Flume (LP, EDM)